HISTORY
of
EMMET COUNTY
and
DICKINSON COUNTY
IOWA

" 'Fields to the right of them.
Fields to the left of them,
Fields in front of them
Pillaged and plundered;
Naught could their numbers tell,
Down on the crop they fell.
Nor left a stalk or shell,
More than six hundred.

" 'Flashed all their red legs bare.
Flashed as they turned in air,
Robbing the farmers there,
Charging an orchard while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the smudge and smoke
Right through the corn they broke.
Hopper and locust;
Peeled they the stalks all bare,
Shattered and sundered.
Then they went onward b‐ but
More than six hundred.' "

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GAME

In regard to the game in Dickinson County in the early days R. A. Smith writes: "Aside from the fur bearing animals the more common were badgers, coyotes, foxes and prairie wolves. In addition to these the timber wolf and the lynx, or bob-cat as the trappers called it, were occasionally met with. Raccoons were common enough in the groves, but did not venture out much on the prairie, and since the groves were limited they were not plenty. There is no account of any bear ever having been seen here. The larger game were deer, elk and buffalo. It is an open question whether buffalo were ever so plenty here as has been popularly supposed or as they are known to have been in the 'buffalo grass' region of the Dakotas and beyond. Fabulous stories were early told of the hunting grounds of Northwestern Iowa and it is possible many have formed extravagant ideas of the richness of it.

"So far as relates to the fur bearing animals, no description of them had ever exceeded the truth, and the same is true of the birds, but when it comes to the larger game such statements need to be taken with some degree of allowance. It was held by some the lakes being the favorite headquarters of certain bands of Sioux Indians, they kept the game hunted down closer than was done in other localities. This was doubtless true to some extent. Be that as it may, the buffalo had practically disappeared at the time of the first attempt to settle the county in 1856. So far as now can be ascertained there are no accounts or traditions of any having been seen in the vicinity of the lakes for three or four years along about that time. Trappers and others coming across the Big Sioux and beyond, occasionally reported having seen buffalo sometimes in large droves and then again in small numbers. But that was contiguous to the buffalo grass region. None came about the lakes at that time.

"Along about 1861 or 1862 there used to be occasional reports of stragglers being sighted on the prairie, but so far as is known none were killed at that time, although some reports are going the rounds of the papers that one was killed in Osceola County in 1860. One was killed in this county in the latter part of 1861 or 1862. He was evidently a two year old. He must have straggled in around the north end of Lake Okoboji, for the first seen of him he was coming down along what is now known as Des Moines Beach, and on reaching Given's Point he took a course, swimming straight across the bay. He landed at the mouth of a ditch, which had been dug from the lake inland to supply a steam mill, located there, with water. The ditch was nearly a hundred and fifty feet long, and although shallow where it entered the lake, it gradually increased in depth as it neared.the mill until at the upper end it was about twelve feet deep. The buffalo entered this ditch without hesitation, and as he

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made his way toward the upper end he soon found himself in a trap. He couldn't go ahead, but he couldn't climb up the sides and he could not back out, and the mill hands putting in an appearance about that time soon dispatched him."

While en route to Sioux City in August, 1863, J. S. Prescott, E. V. Osborn, Aaron Rogers, John Burrill and R. A. Smith discovered two buffalo in the southwest corner of Okoboji Township. At first the men thought the animals to be cattle, but with the aid of a glass found them to be bison. A plan of encircling the animals was evolved, two of them to guard against the escape of the quarry and the other three to shoot them. The first volley had little effect and the animals started to the southwest, but the wounded one was driven back by Smith until again within good range of the guns. A second fusilade failed to down him, but so far checked him as to enable Osborn to send a bullet through his brain, killing him. The second animal escaped. At other times buffalo in numbers from one to three were seen in Northwestern Iowa and in Dickinson County, but hardly a year elapsed before the reports ceased. It is probable that all the buffalos seen in this county were stragglers. Iowa was never a natural habitat of the buffalo.

As to the elk, it is another question. The prairies of Iowa once abounded in this picturesque animal. Until 1871 elk were plentiful. J. A. Smith, in an article written for the Midland Monthly for August, 1895, writes: "Until midsummer of 1871 a considerable drove of elk had found feeding grounds and comparative security for rearing their young in the then unsettled region of Northwestern Iowa, where the trend of drainage is toward the Little Sioux and Rock rivers and near their headquarters. A colony of settlers planted by Captain May in Lyon County in 1869, the railroad surveyors and advance guard of pioneers in Southwestern Minnesota in the same year and the influx of homesteaders into Dickinson, O'Brien, Clay and Sioux Counties at that period, compelled this herd of elk to take refuge in the valley of the Ocheyedan River, a tributary of the Little Sioux. There they remained undisturbed, except by an occasional band of hunters, until a memorable July morning in 1871, when the writer at a distance of some two miles saw them pass southwestward down the further border of a small stream that emptied its waters into the Ocheyedan River. The coign of vantage was a lone house on a homestead claim in the extreme southwestern comer of Dickinson County, miles away from any habitation to the East and many more miles away from any on the West. The herd passed down on the East bank of the stream, while the homesteader's cabin was on the West bank with the wide valley between. To the northwest the view was unobstructed for half a dozen miles, and it was from this quarter that the elk were moving from their violated jungle homes amid the tall rushes and willows of the Ocheyedan Valley.

408 EMMET AND DICKINSON COUNTIES

"Peering through the vista of pink and yellow shades of a rising summer sun, the first thought of the early sunmier dwellers in the cabin was that some emigrant's cattle had stampeded ‐ a not unusual occurrence. A few minutes later and the use of a field glass disclosed the identity of the swiftly galloping animals. Ere they reached the nearest point on the eastern range, we were able to classify them as a drove of elk consisting of four old bulls, ten full grown cows, twelve yearlings and four calves. Judging by the peculiar articulate movements which were plainly visible through the glass, the pace did not seem to be fast, but the conclusion arrived at from the distance covered in a given time, led us to believe that it would be useless to intercept them without swift horses. Some weeks later (for news traveled slowly in those days) we learned that the entire drove in its hegira was scattered and killed before reaching the Missouri River. They took refuge in the larger bodies of timber that skirt the lower waters of the Little Sioux River, and relays of hunters slew to the very last one this fleeing remnant of noble game

And this in brief is the story of the exodus from Iowa of the American elk. ... It is quite probable that the remnant the fate of which these pages record, was the last vestige of the American elk east of the great Rocky Sierras and south of the unsalted seas."

Deer were never plentiful in Dickinson County, due to the absence of any large tracts of timber, the favorite habitat of the animal. Deer in scattering numbers were seen from time to time, but were transient, never staying for any length of time. The last time any number was seen in the northwestern part of the state was in the winter of 1881-2.

Animals such as the fox, the prairie wolf and the coyote were numerous until about 1875, when their species disappeared from the land in Dickinson County. Occasionally the timber wolf made his presence known in this county ‐ usually through his thieving propensities. The lynx, or bob-cat, as it was known by the trappers, was found occasionally in this territory. "One of these animals was killed in the winter of 1869 and 1870 northwest of Spirit Lake by a young man by the name of Fenton, who lived at Marble Grove. Either that winter or a year later one was killed by Frank Mead out west of West Okoboji. Frank and a young man by the name of Hogle were together out there trapping muskrats. It was their custom to make the rounds of their traps during the day, bringing their game in and taking care of the furs in the evening, and they were not very particular about throwing the carcasses far away from the tent. One night Frank heard something prowling around and crunching the carcasses that had been thrown out the preceding day, and crawling out of bed he went to the door of the tent, and cautiously putting aside the curtain that served as a door he, was suddenly startled by the hideous countenance of an enormous bob-cat within six inches of his face. Dodging back

EMMET AND DICKINSON COUNTIES 409

into the tent he seized his revolver and finished the animal there and then. He brought the hide in next day and was quite proud of his trophy." The prevalence of fur-bearing animals and the extent of the fur business at one time is detailed in another chapter of this volume.

FISH