O'Brien is in the second tier of Counties both from the northern and the western state boundaries. It has nearly 570 square miles of land surface and is abundantly watered by the Little Sioux, the Ocheyedan and the Waterman rivers. The Little Sioux, which flows through the extreme southeast corner of the county on its way to the Missouri, cuts that part of the county into rough land, which is the only section that may be called untillable. It provides pasturage for cattle and other live stock and is therefore valuable. The Ocheyedan River drains the northeastern portions of the county and for a stream of its size provides a notably large area of fertile bottom lands, the width of the valley in some places exceeding a mile. The Waterman runs north and south nearly the whole length of the county and empties into the Little Sioux near Waterman's ford. Lesser streams which
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drain and fertilize the soil of O'Brien County are Mill Crock, which joins the Little Sioux in Cherokee County to the south, and the Floyd and Little Floyd rivers, which course their way toward the southwest and the valley of the Missouri. The natural fertility and attractiveness of O'Brien County have been much enhanced by artificial means. Its people have taken liberal advantage of the state drainage laws, jointly with the neighboring counties of Osceola and Clay, and the Ocheyedan River has been especially improved so as to bring many thousands of acres of land into unusual productiveness by the straightening of its bed and the building of a system of ditches leading from it. Further, under the tree-planting law which has been in operation among the Iowa statutes for many years, hundreds of thousands of trees have been transplanted both from the east and the West, with the result that beautiful groves and avenues of maple, willow, ash, birch, elm, chestnut, walnut and other trees everywhere dot and line the land of O'Brien County.
THE POLITICAL BIRTH OF O'BRIEN COUNTY.
O'Brien came into the sisterhood of Iowa counties with a group of fifty, by virtue of the act of the General Assembly approved January 15, 1851. It derived its name from the Irish leader, William Smith O'Brien, who, with Daniel O'Connell, championed Ireland's equality with England. As a
leader of the party known as Young Ireland, he defied Parliament and the speaker of the House, was imprisoned, joined the rebellion of 1848, was sentenced to death (modified to transportation for life), but, after spending a few years of his exile in Tasmania, returned to Ireland. He died in 1864. When the Iowa county was honored with O'Brien's name, the Irish agitator was in exile.
By an act approved January 12, 1853, eleven districts, or counties of Northwestern Iowa, including O'Brien, were included in Wahkaw County for purposes of taxation, election and judiciary, and in another act of the same date a method was provided by which any of the counties might organize as a separate political body. Ten days afterward the name of the mother county was changed from Wahkaw to Woodbury.
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Consequently, when O'Brien County was ready to organize, the petition required to be made looking to that end was directed to John P. Allison, judge of Woodbury County. It is said that the petition wee signed by Hannibal House Waterman and six or seven other voters, with sundry soldiers of the Federal army under General Sully fighting Indians in the Northwest. On the other hand, there are those who assert that Mr. Waterman was the only bona fide settler
within the limits of the county whom signature was attached to the petition. The outstanding fact is that Judge Allison granted the petition from "a majority of the legal voters of said county," declared the county organized after January 25, 1860, and ordered an election for county officers to be held at the house of Hannibal Waterman on the 6th of the following month. I. C. Furber was to act as organizing sheriff and judge of election. The election was held at the date
named at Mr. Waterman's "United States homestead on the northeast quarter of section 26, township 94, range 39 (Waterman Township) - I C. Furber was elected county judge; A. Murray, clerk of the District Court, and H. H. Waterman, treasurer and recorder, to hold their offices until the next general election, November 6, 1860.
On the same day that Abraham Lincoln was first elected president of the United States, O'Brien County selected her first full-term corps of officers, as follows: Henry C. Tiffey,
clerk of the District Court; I. C. Furber, treasurer and recorder; A. Murray, county judge; Sam H. Morrow, surveyor, and H. H. Waterman, road supervisor. There were eighteen votes cast at this election.
THE FIRST CITIZEN AND HIS FAMILY.
Hannibal House Waterman was a native of Cattaraugus County, New York, as was his wife, whom he did not meet until 1852, when their lines crossed in Bremer County, Iowa. Then they were married two years afterward, and then one child, Emily A., was bom to them. They resided in Bremer County until the spring of 1856, when they decided to go farther West. The family arrived in O'Brien County on July 11, 1856. As it was too late for a crop, Mr. Waterman preempted his claim on the northeast quarter of section
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26, township 94, range 39, in what is now Waterman Township. He first erected some meager buildings and founded the homestead upon which the family resided until, in their old age, the father and mother retired from the farm and moved to the Town of Sutherland in the southeastern part of the county. The first daughter married a Mr. McLaren, of Sioux City.
Mr. and Mrs. Waterman arrived in O'Brien County with two yoke of oxen, a wagon and household goods. As the season was so far advanced they realized that winter was not far in the rear. They were without food, except the prospect of game, and possessed but a small amount of money. Mr. Waterman started his hired hand, a one-armed Dutchman, to Fort Dodge with instructions to purchase few hundred-weight of flour and two hundred-weight of meal. Sad were
the tidings to the ears of Mr. and Mrs. Waterman, as the hired man, on his return, informed them that all he could procure was a few hundred-weight of flour. Trappers, stragglers, bands of Indians throughout the country, and occasionally an emigrant, like himself, soon made sad inroads on the flour.
Old Dutch Fred Feldman, one-armed though he was, helped the Waterman family out of many a distressing situation. He was honest, eccentric and faithful, and fairly expressed the political situation of the early years in O'Brien County, when he said: "I am der peoples. Der rest all be officers. Don't it?" Although Old Dutch Fred was ignorant, and was not qualified to hold office, he was at least honest and morally stood on a higher plane than the political adventurers who about this time came from Sioux City and Fort Dodge to loot the treasury of O'Brien County.
A more immediate member of the Waterman family than Old Fred was Anna Waterman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hannibal H. Waterman, who was born May 30, 1857, being the first white child born in O'Brien County; and other children came to them also.
COUNTY SEATS AND COURTHOUSES.
The first, or old log courthouse, was built on the Waterman farm in the early part of 1860, and after the election of
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February 6th of that year, which organized the county. It was built by Archibald Murray. But the county paid Henry C. Tiffey $2,000 for forty acres on the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 36, Waterman Township. Mr. Tiffey was a political schemer; Mr. Wateman was a farmer; the result was that the little log courthouse, in the fall of 1860, was moved from the Waterman farm to the temporary county seat on the Tiffey tract, three-quarters of a mile away. Other buildings were erected for the use of the county officers at what became known as Old O'Brien.
On August 28, 1861, A. W. Hubbard, judge of the District Court, held a term at Old O'Brien and appointed Lemuel Parkhurst, of Cherokee County, Edward Smeltzer, of Clay
County, and James Gleason, of Buena Vista County, as commissioners to select the county seat. They located it on the forty acres already purchased of Mr. Tiffey. The old log courthouse was used for county purposes and was soon needed for a schoolhouse. Other matter buildings were also erected, and different officials kept their books and records in their houses. After the courthouse was torn down and re-erected at Old O'Brien, Archibald Murray, the builder, lived in one and of it with his family and had his auditor's office in the other.
COUNTY SEAT MOVED TO THE PRAIRIE (PRIMGHAR).
The old homesteaders of the county had become disgusted with the adventurers from other counties who had been raiding the county treasury, which, at best, was never replete with funds. They else wished to have the mat of justice at the center of the county near the forty-third parallel of latitude which Congress had designated as near the proposed route of the Milwaukee Railroad. These considerations prompted those who had the best interests of the county at heart to wipe the slate clean and found a new seat of justice on the prairie at the center of the county. Primghar had been platted on the 8th of November, 1872, and three days later an election was held to move the county seat to that location. The vote of the people in favor of the change was
307 for removal and 53 against.
The new county seat on the prairie got its name by selec-
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tion of the first letter from the names of the eight chiefly interested in the platting of the town, viz., Pumphrey, Roberts, Inman, McCormack, Green, Hayes, Albright and Rerick. It was not until April 29, 1873, that the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that the county officers move their records to Primghar. As there were now a few buildings on the town site of the county seat, the officials ventured to do this, so that by the last of June the transfer had been made.
Arrangements wen then made to build a courthouse at Primghar, and a contract was entered into with Stewart & Healy to arect a building at a cost of $2,000. It was completed in April, 1874. The new courthouse was about thirty-five feet square. It had four offices below and a stairway on the outside led to the courtroom.
FOUNDING OF SHELDON.
The founding of Sheldon ante-dates that of Primghar by several months and it has steadily developed into the metropolis of the county, because of its naturally strong commercial position in relation to the rich agricultural districts of Northwestern Iowa, Southwestern Minnesota and Northeastern South Dakota. The Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul and the Illinois Central realized the strength of that position and included Sheldon in their building programs. The town had its commencement on July 3, 1872, when the Sioux City & St. Paul Railroad Company reached the point where the city now stands. That
company platted it in January, 1873, and named it from Israel Sheldon, one of its stockholders living in New York City. Sheldon has now reached the position of a city of the second class.
SANBORN FOUNDED.
Sanborn, north of the central part of the county, is a child of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. Its site was owned by Messrs. Lawler and Stocum, and was platted by the latter in January, 1879. The first construction train of the Milwaukee road reached Sanborn November 1, 1878, and that event determined the good fortune of Sanborn. It was at first designed to name the new town
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Edenville, but second thought bestowed upon it the name of the gentleman who was then superintendent of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company, George W. Sanborn.
A TRIANGULAR COUNTY SEAT CONTEST.
In the Summer of 1879, both Sanborn and Sheldon attempted to wrest the county seat from Primghar, which still was without a railroad. Sanborn had been a railroad town for several months, and ambitious accordingly. Sheldon had been wedded for seven years. "Primghar," as one of the old-timers put it, "poor old maid, was waiting for a proposal." Still the fact stared the covetous towns in the faces - Sanborn was far to the north and Sheldon was in the extreme north-
western part of the county. Withal, the magic watchword "railroad connections” pushed the favored towns briskly on to the fray.
Three days were occupied in the hearings before the Board of Supervisors, June 3-5,1879; petitions from Sheldon and Sanborn and remonstrances from Primghar were bandied back and forth between the citizens of the contending towns and the Board, and some irregularities were discovered. There was much excitement both in the streets and at the courthouse, where the hearings were being conducted, but the result was to reconfirm Primghar in her position.
Three years afterward, the people of Sanborn broke all bounds of caution in their ambition to get the county seat, and organized a force to physically invade Primghar. Most of the citizens of the county seat had taken advantage of a railroad rate war and went away on an excursion to St. Paul. Of the county officers only J. L. E. Peck, auditor, was in town. With the assistance of George W. Schee, the banker, he saved the county seal, the supervisors' record and warrant book. With these exceptions, the Sanborn crowd hauled the county books and papers to their own town and piled them into a room in the residence of J. L. Greene, the Sanborn banker. For the following day (November 24, 1882), this was the courthouse of O'Brien County, but when the Sanborn raiders had a sober second thought they repented of their action and returned all the county records to Primghar, at the expense
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of the aggressors. That was the nearest that Sanborn ever came to securing the county seat.
THE FOURTH COUNTY SEAT CONTEST.
The fourth county seat contest did not occur until June, 1911. By that time, Primghar had been enjoying the conveniences of the Illinois Central Railroad for twenty-four years. The railroad came in 1887, the town was incorporated in that year and a new courthouse was also erected in that epochal year. It is true, Primghar had not the commercial benefit of three railroads and had not grown with the rapidity of Sheldon, but it was in 1911 a neat little town, easy of access, centrally located, and an addition had been made to the courthouse about nine years before. When the citizens of Sheldon therefore petitioned for a removal of the county seat to their town, the taxpayers voted the proposition down, by 3,161 to 1,447. The report of the Board of Supervisors announcing the result of the election was made June 8, 1911. The vote for removal cast by Sheldon was 716, nearly one-half of her total support. There has been no attempt to change the location of the county seat since that year.
One strong argument which was brought to bear against Primghar as the county seat was that there was no good hotel there. While this last contest was at its height, the townspeople got busy, formed a stock company which was enthusiastically and substantially supported, and a large brick building was erected to meet the crying want. When the Hub Hotel was opened to the public on December 8, 1911, it was conceded that Primghar was strongly planted as the county seat of O'Brien.
THE CITY OF SHELDON.
The birth of Sheldon was celebrated an the 4th of July, 1872. The construction train for the Sioux City & St. Paul Railroad Company had reached the town site the day before, and settlers from every part of O'Brien and Sioux counties had gathered to celebrate that event with the usual hilarity of Independence Day. The coming of railroads and Independence was one and the same, and the Sioux City & St. Paul
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was the pioneer of its kind in this region of Northwestern Iowa. It was a cold day as to outside temperature and most of the men had on heavy overcoats. But they brought well filled lunch baskets, with hearty edibles and drinkables and keen western appetites. They made tables from planks borrowed of the construction crews, and an old organ had been secured and placed under a cover made by poles and horse blankets. No banquet accompanied by the grains of melodious music equaled that occasion. The Declaration of Independence was read by C. S. Stewart, and an oration delivered by ex-Governor Miller of Minnesota. Thomas Robinson also delivered a telling speech, and Sheldon was fairly launched.
The faithful historian must record the fact that the first building erected on the town site was a saloon opened by a Storm Lake man. H. C. Lane followed with his lumber office in July, 1872, and S. S. Bradley established a second yard in a few days. About the same time W. A. Fife opened a general store, and the procession of new establishments, arrivals and improvements had started. The first issue of the Sheldon Mail was pulled from the press on New Year's day of 1873. The town already had a post office, and in March, 1876, it was incorporated. Its first town officers were elected in May, with H. B. Wyman as mayor.
In 1893, the Town of Sheldon was changed to a city of the second class. It was divided into three wards. The first city mayor was E. Y. Royce; treasurer, W. L. Ayers; solicitor, D. A. W. Perkins; assessor, W. E. Higley. For many years, Sheldon has had an excellent system of waterworks, the supply being pumped from wells sunk into nearby creeks which are fed by springs. It also consists of an elevated tank and lower, several miles of water mains, street hydrants and fire plugs. The first of the city’s sewer mains was laid in 1905. In 1913, its electric lighting system was inaugurated.
Another index of the thrift and intelligence of the people is found in the handsome Carnegie library erected in 1908-9. Its foundation was laid in 1894 by the women's club known as the Ladies Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
For many years, Sheldon, in the midst of a rich grain country and provided with unusual railroad facilities for shipment, has had a high reputation as a milling center. Its
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first flour mill was built in the early '70s by the Iselin brothers, John and Harry. They erected the original Prairie Queen touring mills and also several residences on the south side of the tracks. The Iselin brothers failed, and after passing through various hands, the plant became the property of Scott Logan who, in 1890, added the Big Four to his milling properties, besides rebuilding the original mills several times. The Big Four plant has also been remodeled and the Scott Logan Milling Company has done more than any other agency to give the City of Sheldon its standing as a flour manufacturing center. A strong farmers' cooperative company and other concerns operate a number of grain elevators and add to its standing as a grain center.
There are few cities in Northwestern Iowa which have developed so rapidly and substantially as Sheldon. Its population in 1900 was 2,282; in 1910, 2,941; in 1920, 3,488.
THE TOWN OF SANBORN.
Sanborn is second to Sheldon among the towns of O'Brien County, and in 1920 had a population of 1,497. The original town was platted January 8, 1879, by J. A. Stocum on the
west half of the northeast quarter and the east half of the northwest quarter of section 35, township 97, range 40. The first construction train had reached the town site in the previous November, and a freight boxcar was set out at Sanborn siding to be used as a temporary station house, or depot. That was enough and the people of Primghar looked seven miles to the north and commenced to gravitate to the new railroad town.
On December 12, 1878, L. C. Green moved his house from Primghar and was the first to occupy any part of the town site of Sanborn. Hiram Algyer, a carpenter, soon followed him, and L. D. Thomas, another carpenter also opened a shop ready for anticipated business. Then came a Mr. Barns, a Primghar hotel keeper, who moved his hostelry bodily to Sanborn, and there continued to serve the traveling or the coming public. The first store was opened by S.W. Clark, whose stock for a time was kept at the freight-car depot, until his Prinighar building could be hauled to the new town.
It was indeed a novel sight to behold one town, and the
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county seat at that, being transported to the site of another, seven miles distant. The prairie was literally dotted with buildings moving from Primghar to Sanborn. But looking back and tracing the sequel, it is men that all of this commotion and jealousy were useless, as both places had special fields and there was plenty of room for both towns, even if Sanborn did not get the county seat.
In 1880, Sanborn became an incorporated town, and its first officers wen elected in April, with E. M. Brady as mayor. The place has a good town hall and a public park, planted to trees in 1890. Within this park stands the high water tower. The ample water supply of the town was secured in 1896-7, and the streets are lighted by electricity, the plant for which was installed in the '90s. The public library was organized in April, 1901, by the Twentieth Century Club of Sanborn, and the Carnegie building which houses it was dedicated in May, 1912.
THE TOWN OF HARTLEY.
Hartley, the third in population among the towns of O'Brien County, had its beginning with the coming of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad in 1878. It was named after one of the surveyors and engineers who had been identified with the building of the railroad. The first platted part of the town was made by W. A. Mickey, in the laying out of Mickey's addition on August 8, 1879. It was one case where the addition was platted prior to the main town. Hartley was not incorporated until July 2, 1888, when at the first election for town officers, the following were chosen: E. B. Messer, mayor; W. H. Eaton, recorder; Samuel Smith, L. C. Green, I. N. Drake, S. H. McMasters, L. Mosher and W. J. Lorabbough, councilmen; J. M. Herron,
marshal; W. S. Fuller, treasurer.
Hartley has a large area of country tributary to it. It is in the northeastern part of the county, at the crossing of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific lines. There are three banks in town, which is evidence of its commercial field, even if the map of the state be not consulted. Hartley has a system of waterworks, the main features of which are several deep wells and a high
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tower tank, and up-to-date electric lighting, the latter put in operation in 1909. The town, however, takes most pride in the soldiers' memorial monument, presented to the town and
the G. A. R. Post by Mr. and Mrs. George W. Schee. It was unveiled June 4, 1891, in the presence of numerous citizens and societies representative of every section of the county.
Hartley has a population of more than 1,300 and has steadily grown for the past twenty , twenty-live years.
PAULLINA AND OTHER TOWNS.
On the 23d of August, 1883, A. Hanson and twenty-seven other citizens filed a petition in the Circuit Court asking that the Town of Paullina be incorporated. An election to decide the matter was held on the 30th of the following October, and of the fifty-one votes cast all but seven favored incorporation. Then, on November 23, 1883, were chosen the first officers of the incorporated town, as follows: I. L. Rerick, mayor; Stephen Harris, recorder; and A. Hanson, John Baumann, Geo. Veeder, J. P. Dessert, W. W. Johnson and D. H. Adkins, councilmen. In due time, the people of Paullina built and operated its waterworks and electric light systems; erected its town hall for the keeping of its fire apparatus; organized a free public library and erected a suitable building in which to house its collections. The original bequest for a library
was made by Fred G. Prothingham and the institution is therefore called the Frothinglorm Free Public Library. The town has a present population of about 1,000 people, and is in the southern part of the county on the Chicago & North Western line.
Sutherland is also a station and an incorporated town on the Chicago & NorthWestern Railway in the southern part of the county about ten miles east of Paullina. In 1882, with numerous other town sites along the line of that road, it was laid out by the Western Town Lot Company. It was named for the Duke of Sutherland, who was visiting a railroad official at the date the town was projected. Sutherland has a present population of about 900. There are three stations on the Illinois Central line of minor importance - that is, Archer, above Primghar, and
Gaza and Calumet, below the county seat.
