PAULLINA AREA HISTORY

The Beginnings 

Iowa-O'brien County in the late 1800's

Four glaciers have covered Iowa at different times, but the last one, the Wisconsin Glacier, affected our part of
the state the most. This glacier is often called the Young Drift since it was the last to be deposited. Our state
can best be described as "gentle rolling". It was the rich black soil of the region that attracted the early settlers to
this frontier. The northwest Iowa area consists of the Primghar-Galva type loam.

There were many hardships to be endured due to the fact that this was an undeveloped area. There were no
roads, no trees, very few dwellings. 

Twenty years prior to the incorporation of the town of Paullina, in 1860, or one year before the beginning of the
Civil War, the population of Iowa was 673,779 whites, 65 Indians, 1069 free negroes, 201 insane persons, and 289
idiots. There were no slaves or fugitive slaves. The population of O'Brien County that same year was 8 persons!
Sioux City had a population of 1116 persons at that time.

O'Brien County had only one town or settlement and it was known as Waterman, named for the first white
settlers in the county. Hannibal Waterman, his wife, and daughter first came to this county in 1856. He exercised
his "squatters rights" in Section 22, about 15 miles southeast of Paullina. The first county courthouse (a log
house) was established on this site. In less than a year this courthouse was moved to a site three miles from the
Waterman's claim and we then hear the first mention of  "Old O'Brien". By 1870, a new courthouse was built and
records show that County Auditor Murry and his famly lived in one end of the building. By 1874, Primghat was
named the county seat and a courthouse was built there. The present courthouse was built in 1915, and
completed in 1917.

O'Brien was the name chosen by the 1858 State Legislature for the county. The namesake was a William Smith
O'Brien, an Irish politician whose lifetime spanned the first 61 years of the 1800's. In 1861, this 24 square mile
county was divided into just two townships namely, Waterman and O"Brien. Caledonia Township's first settlers
arrived in 1872, and Baker Township came into being that same year. It wasn't until 1880 , that Dale, Highland,
and Union Townships were organized.

Rivers and streams that wind their way through this 16 township complex called O'Brien County are: Mill Creek,
Waterman Creek, Coal Creek, Dry Run Creek, Ocheydan River, branches of the Floyd River, and the Little Sioux
River.

Germantown, six miles to the southwest of Paullina, in Caledonia Township, was founded in 1876, prior to the
time families began to settle in the location that later became Paullina. In that year settlers from Cooper Grove,
Illinois, came by rail to Marcus, then walked 11 miles north to learn, if the stories were true about the famed Iowa
soil. They were impressed by what they saw and they found the prairie land could be purchased for $3.50 per
acre or railroad property for $5.00 per acre.

Returning to Illinois, the grasshopper plague prevented their settling here until the year 1878, when they
established the community that was to becme known as Germantown. A post office was established there in
1892, but was abandoned for rural free delivery later. 

The promise of a railroad was responsible for the settlement of Paullina. It was one of the few towns started in
advance of the laying of the rails, in anticipation of the coming of a railroad.

The town of Paullina came into being in the year 1881. It was in 1881, that D. E. Paullin purchased the northeast
quarter of Section 9 in Union Township and deeded it to the Toledo and Northwestern Railroad Company for
one dollar for a townsite. After the plot of the new town was drawn up, it was named Paullina in honor of the
donor.

D. Edward Paullin and his brother, Henry Paullin, first came to this immediate area in 1880, contracting land in
southern Dale Township and northern Union Township in O'Brien County. The prospects of a new railroad
through here prompted their purchase of over 6000 acres. In 1881, two ranch places wer built on this newly
acquired land. One on the northeast corner of Section 3, where the Bert Axdahl famly formerly lived, and the
other in Section 6 in Union Township. John Rutledge was foreman of the east ranch and Robert Cannon was
foreman of the west ranch with Hdson Mickley as overall foreman. The names of Rutledge, Cannon, and Mickley
appear as street names in Paullina honoring these men. After the railroad was built through here in 1882, D. E.
Paullin built a new 16,000 bushel grain elevator in Paullina to take care of the wheat and flax raised on the Paullin
land. After selling his interest in the land to Hudson Mickley in 1883, he got a job as a salesman for a grain
company in Chicago. Paullin occasionally came to Paullina to visit, with the last visit being in early October, 1895.
He died in late October, 1895, at the age of 38 from the effects of tuberculosis. Both the Paullin Brothers were
Harvard graduates and were of English and French descent.

It was amazing at the speed with which the prairie was settled. In 1880, all was open prairie. But by 1890, the
prairie as such had disappeared. The countryside was laid out as today in an orderly pattern of farms. 

Drawn by reports of a soil of incredible richness that needed no fertilizer and was free of timber, immigrants
poured in from everywhere even from the less remote areas of Europe. And they found things just as had been
promised them. Grass belly-deep to a horse, a soil that had only to be turned, to make it yield abundantly. And
here they settled, all the various nationalities of Europe side by side. Gone were all the tensions that made each
country the enemy of the other. Now they were no longer German, Dutch, Swede, Irish, they were all Americans,
Iowans, who were now calling Paullina, their home.

Taken from the Paullina Centennial Book, published in 1983 by the Paullina Centennial Association, Inc.