CHAPTER VI.
CASS TOWNSHIP (CONT'D).

IRANISTAN.

Iranistan was located about two miles west of the present site of Lewis, and Indiantown nearly a mile. F. E. Ball, the original owner of the site, sold it to Stephen T. Carey for $500. Mr. Carey was a resident of Council Bluffs, and took over not only the town site but the sawmill which had been commenced by Mr. Ball. He laid out the town in the winter of 1852-3, and completed the mill, filing the plat for record on the first of March, 1854. While busy at Iranistan he boarded at the house of Nelson G. Spoor, who had also lately come from Council Bluffs, and in 1854 Mr. Spoor bought an interest in both the townsite and the saw-mill. Mr. Carey died during that year and W. N. Dickerson bought a controlling interest in the property, which represented the first village and the first saw-mill in Cass county.

The pioneer mercantile establishment of the township and the county had already been founded by Jeremiah Bradshaw. In 1852 he commenced keeping a store between Indiantown and Iranistan, and in 1853, when the latter was platted, removed it to the new village. Mr. Bradshaw purchased his stock in Sidney, Fremont county, where he continued to buy what was needed to replenish it. On locating in Iranistan he went to Savannah, Mo., and purchased for his store a large stock of goods and groceries. Previously he had kept dry goods, cutlery and a little of everything except groceries, but for these necessaries the settlers had to go to Council Bluffs. So this laying in of groceries was considered a brilliant evidence of business enterprise.

The first building erected in the town after the saw-mill was commenced was the temporary boarding house kept by W. C. Croft. George Shannon's blacksmith shop was the second structure. The proprietor was a Buck-Eye man who came to Iranistan early in 1852, but deserted to Lewis, when it became the county seat. Peter Hedges' small hotel was built soon after the blacksmith shop was erected, and Shannon married the proprietor's daughter, Melinda. Leander McCarty's dwelling and general store were erected about the same time, Bradshaw's establishment being already opened.

Eben and William Buckwalter settled at Iranistan early in 1853. They came from Philadelphia, were single men, and for a couple of years operated a good-sized hotel. They also carried passengers to Council Bluffs. About the same time William Caldwell, Samuel Peters and Caleb Brown, three carpenters, came to town, and are believed to be the first of that trade in the county. Peters and Brown were also violinists and furnished the music for dances and other festive occasions.

Dr. John Welch was the pioneer physician of the place and the county, coming in 1853, and departing in a year for more promising professional fields. A Mr. Taylor, the first school teacher, also taught for a short time in 1853, but his career was cut short by drowning.

John R. Kirk, who afterward became a prominent farmer and citizen of Atlantic township, visited Iranistan in 1853, having been in the county but a few weeks. R. D. McGeehon was with him, and to him he remarked that if the town was a fair specimen of Cass county civilization he should go back to Illinois. It seems that even thus early there was one professional gambler in the place--Dave Cooper, a single man, of the card-monte persuation [sic persuasion], who boarded at Croft's hotel.

Being more of a trading center than Indiantown, Iranistan was more lively socially and otherwise, than its early rival. It had its dances, its athletic sports, such as horse races and foot races, and especially upon Saturdays it was a very busy place. Upon that day the people from all the surrounding country would gather both for trade and amusement; but after the founding of Lewis, and its designation as the county seat, Iranistan struggled against the inevitable for only two or three years, so that by 1856 it was virtually a village of the past, and soon afterward the town site was farm land.

THE FIRST HORTICULTURIST OF THE COUNTY.

One of the best known farmers to locate at that point was Henry B. Russell, the first horticulturist of Cass county. He had migrated from Pennsylvania in 1858 and purchased a tract of wild land in Bear Grove township, where he planted fifty apple trees which he had brought from the Keystone State. He thus started the first orchard in the county, which for ten years he continued to improve, with his farm of 120 acres, until his removal to the old site of Iranistan. He there purchased 232 acres of land, thoroughly cultivated it and improved it with substantial buildings and shade trees, and transformed the place into one of the most attractive homesteads in the township.

"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pg. 90-91.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, August, 2018.