LYON COUNTY GENEALOGY
ELK AND DEER
An item in the LeMars Sentinel, in December, 1871, reads: "The surface of talk was ruffled a little a few days ago by the arrival at LeMars of a load of elk and deer brought down from Lyon County. This is the kind of "muttons" we like. They were killed in township 98, range 44, of Lyon County. The largest elk weighed 398 pounds, the deer 128 pounds, but even this large deer looked small beside his big cousins."
As late as 1873 numerous herds of deer were seen grazing within this county--the elk had all disappeared a year or two previous. One old settler speaks of a drive of as many as two hundred deer, early in the "seventies."
Webization by Kermit Kittleson - Aug. 2006