INTRODUCTORY
Up to the close of the Civil war, one common phrase, "They have moved away up into northwestern Iowa," had not been coined, as the territory including that now known as Lyon County was yet an unsettled domain, up to 1866, and was but little known to white men, save an occasional hunter, trapper, or explorer. It was more than a third of a century ago that the hopeful and adventurous pioneer left his home in central Iowa, or farther east in one of the middle states, and took up a "claim" in this northwestern country which locality was then little less than a desolate prairie-land wilderness. At that date no network of railroads, providing a royal highway over which the iron-hearted, steaming monster could speed his way rapidly, by day and by night, year in and year out, had been projected. The prairie sod was then unturned; the rivers and creeks unbridged and almost impassible roads was the rule everywhere.
Let us hasten then to record the words, as they fall from the lips of the few surviving pioneers; let us speak of the grand and heroic deeds of early settlers in Lyon County, Iowa, that their actions may find their merited niche in the chapter of history, where they justly belong. Let their words and deeds build for them a monument that shall outlive the stone and bronze, which must ere long mark their last resting place. Let there an epitaph be inscribed, "They builded better than they know."
But before taking up this pleasurable duty of writing of pioneer settlers and of modern times, let us record a few facts concerning this county as it existed "down through dim and misty vista of time before man was," and see what foundations were here laid by a wise creator in the geological and surface formations--the soil, the grasses, the forests, the meandering streams and beautiful prairie lands.