Chapter 1
The Making of Osceola County
The 430 square miles of land that we now
call Osceola county lay at one time on the floor of an ocean that
covered the entire continent of North America. For millions of
years, myriad generations of marine life lived and died there,
the lime from their bones and shells falling to the ocean floor
and building up through the years a mass of soggy lime many feet
in thickness. As the lime became thicker and thicker, its own
great weight finally pressed and cemented together into a sheet
of solid limestone.
Today we can still see the remains of various forms of animal
life that gave their bodies to the building up of the stone.
Among the two most common of these fossils are the small,
horn-like shells known as cephalopods and butterfly-like shells
of the brachiopod family.
Gradually the continent rose out of the water. Points of land
appeared here and there and the ocean became shallow and
current-less. Plants took root and began to grow and to spread
their seeds. Soon the marshes and bogs were transformed into vast
forests of strange, fibrous and bulbous plants and trees that
became dense jungles.
But the struggle between the land and the ocean was not yet over.
Great sections of the land sank down again and again and the
making of limestone and sandstone was repeated. The mud and
vegetation beneath the new rock formations became pressed into
layers of slate and coal.
The Sketch of the Geology of Iowa, 1926, tells us: "The
hard, regularly-bedded rocks of Iowa were formed almost
exclusively under water. They were originally loose, soft
sediments spread out where they now lie, in regular sheets or
layers, on the bottoms of ancient seas. The present sandstones
were originally submarine sand banks, the shales were beds of
mud, the limestones were the products of coral reefs or marine
shells of various kinds, broken and ground into fragments, and
the coal seams were first masses of vegetable matter accumulated
in swamps and marshes, somewhat as similar matter accumulates in
modern peat bogs."
Finally the ocean receded and once again Osceola County lay high
and dry. Jumbled and broken rock layers protruded upward to form
ridges and cliffs, the softer, half-formed sandstones and shales
had resolved themselves into sand and soil once more, and plant
life had begun to take root.
But the region was soon to undergo another marked change, the
results of which we can see all about us. The northern hemisphere
became intensely cold. Great quantities of snow fell, and due to
the continued cold did not melt but continued to pile up, layer
upon layer, throughout the long winter months. During the short
summers some of the snow melted, but the long winters quickly
froze this slush into solid ice, and more and more snow fell to
cover it in ever deeper layers.
Year after year, the snowing, melting and freezing continued
until finally a mountain of snow and ice, thousands of feet
thick, had formed far to the north. Then, due to the tremendous
weight above it, the packed ice at the base of this mass began to
crawl slowly outward. As the weight above it increased each
winter, the great blade of ice moved farther and farther
southward, plowing and grinding at the earth before it. Pieces of
cliff were torn off and ground into fine sand, gravel, and
boulders.
Slowly the great mass moved into Osceola County. Its average
speed has been estimated at about one mile in each 12 years, at
which rate it took the glacier somewhere between five hundred and
a thousand years to flow completely over the county. But the
destruction was complete. The ice sheet leveled everything before
it.
No one knows exactly how long each glacier remained but we know
that at least three glaciers came into Osceola County.
The last, known as the Wisconsin Glacier because it came from the
direction of Wisconsin, moved slowly into the northeast corner of
Osceola County, carrying with it millions of tons of closely
packed boulders, gravel, sand, and the debris of previous ice
sheets that it had picked up along the way.
The glacier ate its way across the land, pushing up great hills
and mounds of frozen earth ahead of it. Until it reached a point
about half-way across the county. Then something happened. Warm
days returned, and softened the glacier, and stopped it.
As the ice melted large ridges and hills of glacial debris were
left. These kames and moranines, as they are now called, were
quite often fantastic in shape. Some of them were dome-like, some
resembled inverted cones, others arose to a gentle slope on one
side to fall away precipitously on the other, and others were
long, rounded ridges that lay upon the land like giant
caterpillars. Ocheyedan mound, 1,670 feet above sea level and the
highest point in the State of Iowa, was formed in this manner.
Among these many boulder-strewn formations were many valleys and
depressions.
The glacier left Osceola County in general a flat, elevated
plateau with a drainage system of small rivers and creeks sloping
gently toward the south. The Ocheyedan and Little Ocheyedan
rivers drain the eastern two-thirds of the county, and Otter
Creek the western third. Both these streams finally find their
way into the Missouri River.
Strange animal once roamed these prairies, among them the mammoth
elephant. Its long, curved tusks were sometimes as much as twelve
feet in length and its body was covered with thick, black hair
which grew over a dense matting of reddish wool. That the mammoth
roamed thorough Osceola County is known, for a giant mammoth
tooth was unearthed near Melvin during the summer of 1923.
The Mound Builders are known to have lived here at one time, but
our knowledge of them is meager. We only know they were short of
stature, that they had a knowledge of the use of fire, and used
weapons of bone and flint and built mounds in the effigies of
birds, fish, and animals.
The Indians were the next to occupy the land, but it is quite
unlikely they ever established permanent homes in Osceola County,
for this region was an open prairie that lay entirely unprotected
against the rigors of both summer and winter. There were no
forests to break the drive of winter winds, no protecting
sheltering valleys, not ever timber with which to build fires or
shelters.
During the summer months buffalo, deer, and elk grazed upon the
tall, billowing prairie grass; gophers, badgers and groundhogs
burrowed homes in the sandy knolls; fish teemed in the rivers,
lakes, and creeks; birds sang from the reeds along the banks of
streams, and lakes, and marshes were alive with wild ducks and
geese.
Bands of roving Indians may have come through the county on
hunting and fishing expeditions, but they did not stay, for even
in the summer time there was grave danger here. Sometimes the
tall prairie grass caught fire and a great wave of licking flames
swept the prairie, driving out or destroying everything in its
path.
The absence of trees in Osceola County was perhaps the most
serious result of the frequent prairie fires. The reeds, the
grass, and the quick-growing willows along the banks of streams
could spring up anew each year after being burned over, but the
slower-growing trees were given no chance to establish
themselves. Before the coming of the first white pioneer, Osceola
County offered little encouragement to the homemaker.
Compiled by the Iowa Writers' Program for WPA in Iowa
Transcribed by Kevin Tadd
