The settlers who had stayed on in Osceola
County in spite of the grasshopper invasion planted their seeds
in the spring of 1874, hoping that their troubles were over for a
time. But the spring was dry and the crops did not do well. The
eggs left by the grasshoppers, however, did exceedingly well, and
hatched out under the war sun by the millions.
The first the farmers knew of this danger was when patches and
strips of crops began to disappear from the fields. The farmers
took action then, but it was to late.
Several methods of defense came into use at this time. Smoke and
fire were used to some extent, and the “hopper-dozer was
invented. This consisted of a long plank with a wheel at each end
and a long tin trough that ran along one flat side of the plank
from end to end. The trough was filled with kerosene, oil or thin
tar and the plank was dragged broadside through the fields in
such a manner as to let the grasshopper leap before it and fall
into the trough. After the trough was filled, the grasshoppers
dumped out upon a barren spot of ground and burned. But this did
not solve the problem - - there were to many “hoppers.”
The farmers devoted all their time to the battle against the
insects. Then, ironically enough, all the hoppers arose upon a
gentle wind from the east one day and left. Behind them were the
damaged fields. About a third of the crops were ruined.
Besides the leaving of the pests, two other good things happened
in Osceola County during that year. One was the dedication of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, December 18, 1874, at Sibley, and the
other was the departure of some of the less desirable of the
county’s officials.
Although the grasshoppers scourge discouraged the settlement of
Osceola County still further, those who remained planted their
crops as usual in the spring of 1875. But in the summer of that
year, a foreign swarm of hoppers appeared from the northwest.
This new swarm destroyed nearly all the crops in Viola Township
and damaged fields to a certain extent throughout the rest of the
county. Those farmers who were dependant upon crops alone for
their income were severely hit, while those who had herds of
cattle suffered less. There was enough prairie grass for both the
hoppers and the herds, and the herds did not suffer noticeably.
Fencing became a serious problem at about this time. The herds
were becoming too large to be left on the open range and lumber
with which to build fences was prohibitive in price. Wire fencing
was out of the question at this early date. The farmers did the
next best thing: they tried to plant their fences.
Taking willows from the banks of the streams, they set them out
in long rows about the fields to form a living barrier that held
the cattle.
In the fall of 1876 the grasshopper devastation became so
widespread that the governors of Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa,
Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and the
Dakotas held a convention in Omaha to discuss the problem. The
best that came of this was official recognition of the
grasshoppers. The price of farmlands dropped to below the
original government price as thousands of people began to leave
the infested areas of Iowa. Osceola County’s total
population was 1,778 persons.
In spite of the reverses they suffered, many of the settlers
still had faith in Osceola County, and this faith extended
through outer parts of the Middle West.
One day in 1876, while Daniel Paulings, a banker and land-owner
of Quincy, Illinois, was sitting on the sidelines of a rowing
match at the Philadelphia Centennial, he became acquainted with
William B. Close of Cambridge, England. In the course of
conversation, he gave Close a glowing account of the
possibilities of northwestern Iowa. Mr. Close visited the area,
then returned to England and persuaded his brothers to form a
colonization company and come to America. The Iowa Land Company,
as it was called, centered its operations at LeMars and was
listed on the London Stock Exchange as having a capital stock of
approximately $5,500,000. It was soon to have a direct bearing on
Osceola County.
In 1886 Peter Shaw of Viola Township wrote the following letter
to the Sibley Gazette Tribune:
“This summer O.B. Fowler from Indianapolis purchased a
quarter section in the southwest part of this township of the St.
Paul Railroad Company. He is a good, stirring man and thinks that
northwest Iowa is not to be sneezed at, if we do have
grasshoppers occasionally, for farmers can devote their attention
to raising stock and making butter and cheese and it take little
means here for a farmer to begin, compared with the older
counties.
“Land is cheap, from $5 to $8 per acre, on long time with
small payment down. We have no fences to build as we have a heard
law and stock is herded in the summer time by boys or picketed
out by using stakes and long ropes. So by not having any fences
to build, it saves half the price of the land.
“If the farmer wants a fence let him plant out a willow
hedge which will make him a fence in six years, that will turn
any kind of stock and will be an ornament to the place.
“You can get good water here by digging 15 to 20 feet. You
can burn hay for fuel, which is another big item saved in the
fuel line. A man with a mower can cut hay enough in one day to
last a family a year. And it makes better fuel to cook by than
soft coal.
“With these and many other advantages this county possesses,
I look upon it as one of the most promising for a man of small
means to invest in, or for the capitalist for that matter.
During the same year Benjamin A. Dean, the elder of the
prairie-fire episode, expressed in a letter to the editor of the
Gazette Tribune the need he felt for keeping a record of the
county’s growth, saying:
“A general history of the county ought to be started soon
before those who posses the precise information - - the early
settlers - - are out of reach. I believe Mr. Nelson, who with
stock and teams made the so-called “Bohemian Trail”
across the county in township 96 - - on his way to settle Beloit,
Iowa, six summers ago - - is living.
“D.C. Whitehead, Esq., is dead. Though the snow in March `71
he staked out the state road between 99 and 100 from Silver Lake
to Rock Rapids. Probably the railroad man can be found who worked
in the preliminary railroad surveys throughout the county in `71.
“That year I saw two fair-sized trees in our county uncut
and some settlers can inform us to the existence of quite a grove
in our northeast township.
“Possibly we might learn who built that trappers sod house
on the Ocheyedan in 1870 which A. Buchan found in the spring of
`71. Captain Huff, the first settler to build a house here - - it
was a frame house - - can tell us of first preemptions and
homesteading in those days when he quartered the advance guard.
“It would not be hard to learn what family first pitched a
tent or planted wagon top cover on it homestead here, who struck
the first furrow, about how much ground was broken up the first
summer and how much crops raised; also how many families were
here and stayed throughout that terrible winter when Beeman,
Knaggs and Dr. Hall froze to death.
“We might well have this winter a Pioneer’s Society to
which the first comers should narrate reminiscences or anecdotes
of our beginnings and write out what they know of that first
year.
“And let a secretary and county historian preserve these
facts – not for buncombe or advertisement but for
generations to come. Who is the man fitted for this who will take
it in hand?”
So far as is now known, Dean’s letter brought no immediate
general response. The earliest complete local work, History of
Osceola County, Iowa, was written or complied by D.A.W. Perkins,
who published the book at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1892.
This work makes no reference or acknowledgement to Benjamin A.
Dean. But since some good stories of early life in the county
have survived, it seems likely that some of the settlers must
have taken care to hand down descriptions of their experiences,
which were told and retold so often that these were kept alive.
Compiled by the Iowa Writers' Program for WPA in Iowa
Transcribed by Kevin Tadd