Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/516

 Previous to 1856 Sac had been attached to Greene County for judicial, election and revenue purposes.

The first election was held April 7, 1856, at the house of Eugene Criss, at which the following officials were chosen:  Samuel Watts, judge; Francis Ayers, clerk; F. M. Corey, recorder and treasurer; W. F. Lagourge, sheriff, and H. C. Crawford, prosecuting attorney. The first term of the District Court was held at Sac City by Judge C. J. McFarland in June, 1857.

For many years the settlers were obliged to go to Fort Dodge, a distance of fifty miles, for goods, groceries and mail. The first house at Sac City was built by Eugene Criss for a hotel, which was for many years the station for the semi-weekly stage line running between Cedar Falls and Sioux City. In 1863 Grant City was laid out in the southern part of the county on the Raccoon River. The first newspaper was the Sac Sun, established in July, 1871, by J. N. Miller of Sac City. Odebolt, in the western part of the county, was laid out by the Blair Land Company in 1877 on a branch of the Northwestern Railroad. The town of Wall Lake was platted by the Blair Company in 1877, three miles south of the famous lake of that name in the Maple valley. SCOTT COUNTY was created in 1837 from territory belonging to the original counties of Dubuque, Cook and Muscatine. It lies on the Mississippi River in the fifth tier north of Missouri and contains four hundred fifty-five square miles. The county was named for General Winfield Scott who was in command of the department of which this county was a part in 1832. An account of the earliest settlements and the contests for the county-seat have been given elsewhere.

The survey of the public lands of Iowa began in the fall of 1836 and was completed in Scott County, by A. Bent, in March, 1837. The first county officials were appointed by Governor Lucas in 1838 and consisted of Ebenezer