Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/510

 probate judge; W. T. Ayres, treasurer; Thomas Mitchell, sheriff; Thomas McMullen, recorder; Benjamin Saylor, W. H. Meacham and E. W. Fouts, commissioners. On the 25th of May of the same year the county-seat was established at Fort Des Moines and the first term of court was held that spring by Judge Joseph Williams, one of the log houses of the garrison serving as a court-house.

The town of Fort Des Moines was platted by A. D. Jones, county surveyor, in July, 1846. In July, 1849, Barlow Granger established the first newspaper in the county which was a weekly named the Iowa Star. In 1847 Miss Davis opened a school in one of the government buildings, room No. 26. The Capital of the State was located at Des Moines in 1857 and the first railroad, the Des Moines Valley, reached the city on the 29th of August, 1866. This road was built up the Des Moines valley from Keokuk. The Rock Island Railroad reached the Capital a year later.  POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY lies on the east side of the Missouri River in the third tier north of the Missouri State line. It is one of the largest counties in the State containing an area of nine hundred sixty square miles. Next the Missouri River are level bottom lands ranging in width from three to ten miles; while back of these high bluffs rise abruptly to a height of from one to three hundred feet. Eastward the surface is broken into steep ravines and hills gradually becoming gently rolling prairie. As originally created in 1847 Pottawattamie County embraced the territory now divided into the counties of Fremont, Page, Taylor, Adams, Montgomery, Mills, Cass and a portion of Ringgold, Union, Adair, Guthrie, Decatur and Harrison. Its name is derived from the Pottawattamie tribe of Indians which formerly occupied that portion of Iowa. A sketch of the earliest settlements has been given in another place.

The county was organized in September, 1848, by the