The more we share the more we have to share!
On May 28, 1855, the Iowa Land Company was organized under the general laws of Iowa, by its articles authorized to purchase, hold, improve and sell real estate, and to do such other acts as are incidental to these objects. Prominent among its early friends were the first officers — C. B. Steward, President; J. G. Forbes, Vice President; R. H. Nolton, Secretary; besides Charles Walker, Lucius B. Crocker, A. G. Mitchell, C. A. Lombard, John Bertram, B. A. G. Fuller and T. T. Davis, also those gentlemen who have since been for years identified, not only with the growth and prosperity of the Land Company, but also of Clinton, viz. : the late J. C. Bucher, Col. J. Van Deventer, Secretary, Treasurer and General Agent since 1857, except when absent in the war, and Horace Williams, President of the Company since 1860.
The company built the first substantial edifice in Clinton, the Iowa Central Hotel and Block, where its office remained until in December, 1878, when it removed to the new block on Fifth avenue, owned by the C, I. & N. R. R., where, after a long life of energy, usefulness and public-spirited liberality, its affairs are now (August, 1879,) in process of winding up.
The liberal donations of land from the company to various churches, for public parks, etc., while aiding the development of the city must have materially curtailed its own profits. To the company's wisdom is due the fact that the town was so well and regularly laid out, with broad avenues—none less than 100 feet wide—extending from the river at intervals of 300 feet, and intersected at right angles by streets 80 feet wide and 600 feet apart.
THE LAND COMPANY'S INITIAL OPERATIONS.
On the 4th of July, 1855, the Land Company made its first purchase of about five hundred acres of land on the west bank of the Mississippi, situated at the great eastward bend of the river, where a broad and beautiful site at a proper elevation above high-water, and skirted upon its background with picturesque oak-covered bluffs, naturally invited the building of a large city, whence, at its eastern terminus, a railroad might start to penetrate the interior of the State. Another advantage which this site presented was the fact that at this point the Mississippi offered rare facilities for bridging in consequence of the adaptation of the channel, the security of the shores, and the proximity of Little Rock Island, that made it superior to any other point below St. Anthony. To the wise forethought and courage of the Iowa Land Company, Clinton, with its present population and business, bears testimony.
These considerations for selecting this site were re-enforced by the advantages offered by the natural levee sweeping for a mile along the river front as sites for warehouses and factories, but it is doubtful whether the prolongation of the river front by the Riverside slough was fully appreciated as a possible factor in the city's growth. The broad plain between the river and back bluffs, and the gentle slope of those now in the Third and Fourth Wards, plainly offered room for a city to expand unchecked over a wide level area. The oak-crowned back bluffs were as unmistakably suited for suburban residences, while they sheltered the whole locality from wintry gales and summer storms. The valley winding southwesterly between the two ranges of bluffs added picturesqueness to the charming view. The shallow soil afforded over a large share of the future site, solid foundations for large buildings, and the convenient quarries were not overlooked.
Yet, except in the eyes of the most sanguine builders of cities, it must have seemed a herculean task to develop a town on Clinton's site. It was not by any means certain that a road would be built thence to the West; the connection with the line that Milo Smith was then pushing westward from Chicago across the boggy Illinois prairies was uncertain, and the location of the crossing still more problematical. A powerful and jealous rivalry was naturally to be expected from other interests. The site, although possessing advantages recounted above, was not altogether an Arcadia. It was rather low—stagnant water, where the land sloped toward the bluff, and the slough winding southwest from the present gas-works location, and so deep at times that a horseman had to swim across, being evident drawbacks to the plat.
In 1863, the prospect of the city could scarcely be considerd rosy. Stagnation appeared to be settling upon the town as it had upon so many promising future metropolises along the river. It would have puzzled even "Mark Tapley" to have been jolly over the financial outlook, had he at that time been very heavily loaded with Clinton city lots. The town was virtually bounded by First avenue, the river, the railroad track and Fourth street, and within even those narrow lines were yawning gaps. On Second street were only Charles Young's hardware store in the old building on the southeast corner of Third avenue, and a drug store a block below. On Second avenue were more houses than on any other. On the corner, where now stands the Revere, was a partially burned hotel. Where the gas-works now stand was a regular village of shanties. Where now stands the superb brick row of a score of stores on the north side of Fifth avenue, above Second street, was then a vacant space. The residences of Messrs. I. B. Howe, J. Irwin, William Poole and R. Dunbar, were the cnly dwellings on Fifth avenue, above Second street, the territory above which was practically an open common. Fourth street was scarcely defined, though around his house F. P. Wilcox had erected the first fence, inclosing a yard, in the town. The inner bluff extended eastward a block, and northward many rods farther than now, it not having been quarried extensively for building and filling purposes. On its summit, the old Ten Broeck House rose in solitary state. The section south of the railroad was occupied only by isolated groups of shanties. Many blocks were crossed by diagonal "streets." Second street was, in bad weather, a quagmire in which milk wagons were stalled. Between Lyons and Clinton was a mud-hole—impassable for pedestrians during the greater portion of the year. The dwellings were mostly on the avenues between First and Third streets. Seventh, Eighth and Sixth avenues, had quite a number of tolerable houses. Sidewalks earliest gave evidences of the germ of public spirit and improvement. The Gushing House, on Eighth avenue, now occupied by Judge Cotton, was the "swell" mansion of the town. After nightfall, darkness of Egyptian blackness prevailed, except Avhere relieved by lights from house or store windows. On Front street, around the Central Hotel, was the market-place where people were wont to most congregate.
But, with the close of the war and the completion of the bridge, detailed elsewhere, the town began, to use a word seemingly in process of absorption into the vocabulary, "to boom." Activity in the real estate agencies and Recorder's offices during 1865 and several successive years attests the marvelous expansion of the town between then and 1870, and makes that the "flush " era of Clinton's growth. In 1865-66, the migration of business up town from the river Avas fairly inaugurated by the building of the Young and Toll Blocks, on the corners of Fifth avenue and Second street. On Second street and Fifth avenue wooden blocks and stores rose like an exhalation. As seen by reference to those topics, saw-mills and other manufactures were developed during these years, the schools and churches were built up, the demand for workmen and mechanics fully absorbed the supply, bankers and business men both from the East and adjacent Western points, and possessed of capital, energy and skill, infused life and prosperity into the town. Public improvements noted under their appropriate heads were energetically prosecuted, and the mental and social life of the place kept pace with its material growth. New-comers were welcomed, so that they quickly felt naturalized and domesticated. Visions of a vast city seemed not at all impossible of realization. Shanties temporarily occupied by laboring men were rapidly replaced by comfortable dwellings, a large proportion of which were owned by the tenants. A wise and liberal policy on the part of the large employers assisted many to become independent householders. Probably there are few places in the United States where there are more freeholders in proportion to the population than in Clinton. To that cause, and the intelligence of its workmen, has been due the immunity of the town from "labor" agitation.
ORIGINAL PLAT AND ADDITIONS.
The original town of Clinton, as laid out by the Land Company, contained 291 acres. Soon after the Company made six additions to the place increasing the town plat to 635 acres, or nearly a square mile. This soon became too limited an area for the growing town, and other additions rapidly succeeded each other, due to the enterprise of real estate dealers as well as to the demand for building-lots especially by residents of moderate means ambitious to own their homes. The other additions were as follows : Gray's Addition, June 22, 1866 ; Hyatt's Addition, April 20, 1867 ; Flournoy's (first) Addition, April 14, 1868; Strayer's Addition, March 13, 1868; Davis' Addition, April 27, 1868 ; Aikens' (first) Addition, April 5, 1869 ; Bluff Addition, June 30, 1869 ; F. K. Peck's Addition, September 28, 1868 ; Flournoy's (second) Addition, August 17, 1869; Corbin's (first) Addition, October 9, 1871 ; W. B. Peck's Addition, October 10, 1872 ; Baldwin's Addition, November 22, 1872 ; Corbin's (second) Addition, February 10, 1877 ; Pearce's Addition, October 8, 1875.
In few American towns, and rarely in any of the same age, have the advantages bestowed by nature been more indefatigably supplemented by artificial improvements. Could every building in the city be magically removed, any of the old proprietors would wonder at the changes the town site had undergone. In this respect, it fairly rivals some of those places wrung from the sea by the hardy Hollanders, and, in proportion to its size, Clinton has surpassed the vaunted street-filling of Chicago and back bay improvements of Boston. Thousands upon thousands of loads of broken rock from the bluffs have been piled into the principal streets and broad avenues to a depth of from two to over six feet above the original soil. Accordingly, when other Northwestern cities are floundering in spring mud, the visitor to Clinton is astonished not onlv at the breadth, but at the drv and clean condition of the streets. The stone-filling has contributed not only to the appearance and convenience of the thoroughfares, but to the unusually high average of public health. To obtain this rock, so much of some parts of the bluft's have been cut away as quite to transform them and the avenues in their vicinity. Near the mills there has been a vast amount of filling with pine lumber refuse and sawdust, the resinous quality of which renders its decay so slow that no harm is likely to result from its use to fill up low ground.
The wisdom of the Iowa Land Company in laying out the city on so open a plan, and also setting out choice shade trees throughout the original plat, has borne double fruit. In beautifying the town, its sanitary condition was also decidedly enhanced. For so young a town, it is now wonderfully well shaded. The umbrageous boughs not only add wonderfully to the looks of the broad avenues and furnish nesting-places for innumerable beneficial birds, but also break the sw^eep of winds and absorb malaria, while, in the hot season the passer-by blesses the embowering shade.
The parks in the heart of the city, with the surrounding rows of shade trees, are not only ornamental but doubly valuable in a sanitary point of view. Parks have been well styled the lungs of cities, and in those so felicitously named Clinton and De Witt, citizens of Clinton will, when the present trees are grown to towering size, take as much pride as Bostonians do in their Common, while the space of two blocks they occupy has many-fold repaid its value by affording a place for hundreds of young children to exercise their active limbs, stretch their growing bodies, and recreate brains tired with confinement and study.
SOURCE: Allen, L. P., History of Clinton County, Iowa, Containing A History of the County, it's Cities, Towns, Etc. and Biographical Sketches of Citizens, War Record of it's Volunteers in the late Rebellion, General and Local Statistics, Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men, History of the Northwest, History of Iowa, Map of Clinton County, Constitution of the United States, Miscellaneous Matters, &c, &c., Illustrated. Chicago IL; Western Historical Company, 1879