LOUISA COUNTY, IOWA

The Wapello Republican
June 18, 1981, Section B, Page 33
Transcribed by Shirley Plumb, July 22, 2018

THE LOST BURRIS CITY
by Aaron Melack

    Is only a Memory, Even in Iowa’s Short History. It Stood Near the Junction of Iowa and the Mississippi and Was the Prey of Both.-Its Boom Days.

    Of the hundreds of Sun readers, asks Aaron Mellick, in the Ottumwa Sun, how many of them know that we have a lost city in Iowa that once was known throughout the length and breadth of the land as a thing of beauty that promised to be a joy forever? The older citizen living in Iowa, in the early 50’s, will call to mind the many railroad projects that lived, flourished and promised fabulous wealth to the state and untold riches to the people who owned corner lots in many towns and cities that existed in the minds of honest projectors of these enterprises. The state was to be banded with “ribbons of steel,” and the iron horse was to chase away forever the Indian, the buffalo and all that sort of thing. Soon came the surveyors, and among the many promising lines of railroad none took precedence over the great Air Line road from Boston by Omaha and through to the golden shores of California. People of Iowa believed in it. On the easterners side of the state, where they had been building their houses and fences of green second growth cottonwood lumber and making their winter fuel of the refuse of the same timber, it was promised that pine lumber should build the houses, and stone coal from Pennsylvania and Ohio should be utilized for fuel at a low price to be paid for with Iowa bacon and cattle at a gorgeous figure. Many of you remember the great barbecues held along the line of the road as made on the map of the state by the aid of a string. Every town tried to outdo every other town the same as when Ottumwa went into the glucose and broom factory business. Now we come to the lost city of Iowa. The first railroad line through Iowa was to cross the Mississippi River a short distance above the mouth of the Iowa River. In going west to leave New Boston, in Illinois, a boom town, and Toolesboro, another boom town to the left, thence to Burris City on a promontory between the two rivers, thence to Wapello, Louisa County; Lancaster, Keokuk County; to Eddyville, and thence through to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Well we recollect the banquet is the capital of proud Louisa, the table in the court house yard, groaning beneath the weight of the best edibles the land afforded, the whole block covered with an awning made of boughs out from trees in full leaf. The gay imported and bedizened uniforms of the brass band and the big Dutchman with a huge moustache from Burlington, who played a symphony on the bass drum. Col. W. W. Garner, editor Noffsinger and other notables were to explain what a scheme it was to vote a tax to help this great civilizer along and across the state. The meeting was great success. As immense crowd was present. The enthusiasm was unbounded. Of the prominent actors on that stage that beautiful summer day, almost all that we remember have passed to the other side, where we hope they enjoy their riding in golden chariots or silver vehicles 16 to 1.

    About the year 1858 N. W. Burris, one of your smart, go-ahead sort of fellows, with an eye to the future, bought a tract of land on the north side of the Iowa River, and its junction with the Mississippi, platted it, started it and named it Burris City. The proprietor was a man of limited means, but shrewd, enterprising and imaginative. The railroad scheme helped him: himself with pleasing address and a reader of minds, he employed good talent, the best there was to be had and became the town and people believed in him. He borrowed thousands of dollars on the faith of Burris City. People in that city believed a great city would be built there and invested their money. Burris erected the saw and planing mills and started brick yards and in less than sixty days he and others had erected more than one hundred buildings there, many of them substantial structures. This was in the days when eastern capital was anxiously seeking profitable investment in the west. One of Burris’ agents, C. R. Dugdale, went east, and oh my how he did boom that town. He was provided with plenty of money to be invested in advertising and planed it where it would do the most good. He also carried with him several thousand highly colored maps, and innumerable lithographs, giving a bird’s eye view of the great city, with its wharf lined with steamboats, the air line railroad, street cars, churches with their spires reaching up heavenward, parks, lake and drives inhabited by spanking teams and gaily dressed people.

    Dugdale was known as the financial agent of the enterprise and was well fitted for the position. Through his activity, plausibility and printedd adjunet, he sold hundreds of lots at big prices to eastern people. None of them, however, came west, took a look at the city, but all invested their money. Lots sold rapidly at $ 1,000. A man named Dunlap started a newspaper, the Burris City Commercial, a line appearing weekly, of which our own E. H. Thomas was foreman, and O. G. Jack was the boss job printer.

     Dunlap was a man of large experience in newspaper work, but was dissipated. He had spent several years in Washington as a private secretary to some congressman, and while there, it is said, contracted the habit of drinking too much whisky. One of the best buildings of the place was a fine three-story brick hotel, owned and managed by the Stafford Bros. It was fitted up in grand shape, with marble floor, billiard room and saloon in the basement. On account of the many visitors there it did a large business for four or five months. Ed. Stafford was an old newspaper man and as Dunlap was a failure Stafford was induced to purchase a complete outfit for a daily newspaper and job office. The material was shipped to Burris City, but the paper never materialized. Many other improvements, like the daily, died in embryo.

    Old settlers in that section knew the land on which the city was being built was subject to overflow. Burris was aware of this, but his plan was to grade it up above high water mark, shipping the dirt in on cars during the winter and that those who had invested would contribute their portion of the expense. Unfortunately for the city the fall rains came both heavy and continuous. The Mississippi and the Iowa both got on a boom at once in the fall of the year, a thing never known before. There was from six to eight feet of water in the main streets of Burris City and boats were in demand to save people from drowning. Stafford counted fourteen dead bodies in his billiard room and his cook caught a ten-pound catfish in the oven of the kitchen range. The flood washed away all sorts of embankments, filled wells and cisterns with sand and caused general demoralization among the bean eaters who had located there. They folded their water-soaked tents and uttering curses both loud and deep, left the country forever. Thus died Burris City, and it was lost forever. The founder at one time refused an offer of $ 300,000 for his interest in the city, but his faith overcame his judgment and he left the site as poor perhaps as when he bought it. The few buildings the water left were soon torn down and carted away to other points. Burris went to Colorado and was killed by the Indians.

    The last the writer ever saw of Burris City was along some time before the close of the ‘60’s. We were passengers on the Jennie Whipple. Captain Campbell’s tug, toward the close of the summer, about the hour of sunset, when the shadows grow the largest through the dull red cloud, and the captain remarked, “I guess we will not stop at Burris City this trip.” In answer to an inquiry, “there it is.” A desolate strip of country, largely sand bar, on which rested a stranded keel boat, broken in the back, the planking off, the ribs half buried in the sand, while the buzzards which had been enjoying a savory meal from plucking a cadaver of some sort, alarmed at the chug, chug, chug of this good, staunch steamer as she plunged her way through the waters of the grand old Mississippi, slowly and regretfully far away. Knowing the history of the place in its palmy days, the present sight gave us a shiver, and with the captain, we adjourned to the cabin to take a cup of coffee. Thus you see Iowa has lost a city that has long since passed to dust and dreams. Aaron Melack

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The Lost City.

     Mediapolis New Era: “Somebody is writing a great false story about Burris City. The really and truly true part of the story is the fact that the city was laid out in the swamp land above the mouth of the Iowa River, and a number of lots were sold at high prices. One or two houses were built and the foundation laid for a large brick block. Then the flood of 1877 came and the town went under. N. K. Burris left for Oregon and lost his scalp on the plains. There never was a three story brick hotel with marble floor and billiard hall. There never was a newspaper, except a sheet printed in New Boston by one Stafford who owned a printing office there. We The Burris City Commercial well. It was a large 4-page 8 or 9 column sheet, but amounted to nothing. When the type came for the daily, there was not a man living in Burris City.”

     Bros. Merrill is a little previous in pronouncing the article reproduced in last week’s REPUBLICAN about the lost city of Iowa “a fake story.” There are plenty of people living Wapello and Louisa County yet who remember Burris City well and who were there in its best days. The only important error is the amount was in giving the date 3 years later than it should have been. The town was started in 1855 and we are credibly informed that upwards of forty building were erected. Any one caring to investigate can find on the records of Louisa County large number of transfers of lots in Burris City and the high prices paid for the same. The Burris City Commercial was printed in that town and after the flood that destroyed the place the press was brought to Wapello. Burris built his residence in the edge of his own town and about three-quarters of a mile from Toolesboro. Persons familiar with the geography of that vicinity can form a pretty fair idea of the dimensions of Burris City as it was laid out. It is true as New Era says, that there was no three-story brick hotel with marble floor, but there was a two-story one, with a billiard room, and well fitted up. There were also stores of all descriptions and planning mill. We know of homes now standing near Toolesboro that were moved from Burris City. The account as published is in the main true and there is no excuse for a man who claims to be somewhat of an historian himself to deny it simply because it is interesting history and recital of it makes good reading.