pg 289

Louisa county has never lacked for towns or town sites, but many a once pretentious town or prospective city has long since given way to the corn field or the pasture. The county now has Wapello, Columbus Junction, Morning Sun, Columbus City, Oakville, Grandview, Lettsville, Cotter or Cotterville, Wyman, Cairo, Fredonia, Elrick Junction, Toolsboro, Marsh, Gladwin, Newport and Bard, being seventeen in all. A few of these places are little more than railway stations, and can hardly be said to have any special history distinct from that of the neighborhood in which they are situated; others doubtless have some interesting matter connected with their growth which has escaped us. In addition to existing towns, there are those which are past and gone. The list of these is as follows: Cuba City, Tecumseh, Sterling, Yellow Banks, Iowa Town, Florence, Harrison, Pittsburg, Cateese and Port Allen, all on the Iowa River; Burris City, Port Washington and Port Louisa on the Mississippi; the list also includes Hillsboro, Lafayette, Altoona, Odessa, Virginia Grove, Hope Farm, Cannonsburg, Clifton, Spring Run, Oakland, Palo Alto and Forest Hill. Perhaps we should also include Waiting's Landing, as this existed before Port Louisa was started and Was quite a well known shipping point in the early days. There was also the old town site of Columbus City. There were two Port Louisas, one of them sometimes called West Port. We should also include Lower Wapello, as that was probably entirely distinct from the present city.

Of some of these ancient villages we know even less than we do of the works of the Mound Builders, for in regard to the latter, we at least know their location, and this is more than we know about a few of our early towns.

Mr. Toole in the Annals of Iowa for 1870 says: "In its early days it (Louisa county) had a full share of speculative or prospective cities, in the eyes of the proprietors, that are now dead or extinct towns and embraced in boundaries of corn fields, viz: Beginning at the mouth of the Iowa river it had first, Cuba City, next Sterling, Tecumseh, Yellow Banks, Iowa Town, Florence, Harrison, Pittsburg and Cateese all on the Iowa river."

We may assume that Cuba City was quite near the mouth of the Iowa river, and it was probably at this place where Lieutenant Lea was refused shelter in February, 1836, "in the only house there, occupied by a drinking crowd of men and women." Sterling, sometimes called Mt. Sterling, was afterwards added to Toolesboro as Frank's addition.

We have no information as to the exact location of Tecumseh, nor of Yellow Banks, but it is probable that Yellow Banks was situated on the north side of the Iowa river near the Oakville bridge, as that place has always been known as ...

pg 290

... Yellow Banks. The early settlers claimed that there was a French trading house at Yellow Banks long before the Black Hawk war, and that the remains of the buildings were to be seen there when the county was first settled.

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