West Liberty History 1838-1938

Source: One Hundred Years of History
* Commemorating a Century of Progress in the West Liberty Community * WEST LIBERTY, IOWA
LOG CABIN HISTORY

Chapter XXVIII

INTRODUCTION OF BLUE GRASS

(Poa pratensis)

At the time of the coming of the white man to this region, as has been noted, they found the prairies luxuriantly covered with grasses of unknown species. In the sloughs was the coarse cane grass and a finer narrow-leaved harsh grass, with a sharp-cutting edge. Neither of these grasses were of any great economic value for pasture or as hay, as they were too coarse and harsh to be relished by stock, except for a short time in the spring when first starting to grow, when stock would sometimes feed on them in the absence of anything more palatable. Away from the slough and intermediate between the swamp and high ground the blue stem flourished in its greatest luxuriance. This grass grew in thick tufts, with many long narrow blades and tall seed stalks, from four to six feet in height. This was a valuable grass for either hay or grazing. On the higher ground was the blue-stem---not so rank as on the lower ground---and a fine narrow-leaved grass, growing from two to three feet high. Thus, while the prairies were clothed with valuable and abundant grasses, they were mostly new species to the inhabitants, and their best uses had to be found by trial. In all this broad expanse of country, where now flourish vast meadows of tame grasses, was not to be found a single blade of blue grass or bloom of white clover, now so common.

About the year 1840, there appeared in the settlements a family whose name I have failed to learn or from what region they came. They were hunting a location in the new west. They were traveling in wagons and were hard to please, so they spent more time viewing the land, moving from place to place as suited their fancy. At length they camped on the west fork of the east branch of the Wapsie, in the southwest quarter of section 36-79-4, on a farm now owned by H. Duple, and seemed to be better suited there than in any other place. They made a permanent camp but built no house of any kind, being content to live in a tent and their wagons. They had camped in the shelter of a massive elm and had driven pins in the body of the tree on which they placed shelves to serve as a cupboard on which to keep stores of provisions as had to be placed out of reach of their numerous dogs. They remained there for several weeks and perhaps months and when they finally moved on, left the shelves on the tree; and those pins on the tree were pointed out to " tenderfeet " for many years as showing the manner in which the first settlers kept house, the shelves being represented as sleeping places for the children, being placed there to keep them safe from the wolves and other savage beasts. They eventually wandered on in their quest for an eldorado, and the next season visitors at their camping place discovered a few blades of blue grass ( poa pratensis ) growing where their teams had trampled out the native grasses. This grass flourished and spread, and is the first authenticated patch of blue grass west of the Mississippi river in Iowa. That it found a congenial soil and climate is evident from the rapidity with which it held the ground when once occupied by it. Now there are but a few acres of virgin soil in all the older parts of the state but that is entirely occupied by this most valuable of all our grasses. Blue grass also appeared along the Indian trail and on the DeMoss place, now owned by Sylvanus Hogue. It followed closely in the footsteps of civilization, and marked the beginning of a new era in the vegetable production of the west.

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