good graded school. Colo was organized as an incorporated town in the spring of 1876, and on the thirteenth of May of teat year the first election for town officers was held, at which election S. L. Bailey, was elected as mayor, and Riley French, P. W. HOPKINS, C. W. Gross, R. M. Bailey and P. E. Granger were elected councilmen.
WARREN TOWNSHIP.
Township 85, range 22, was first settled by Mr. John A. Boston, who came from Whiteside County, Illinois, in the fall of 1868, to the farm on which he still resides (1876), being the northeast quarter of section 33. At that time, from his elevated situation, he could see only two houses, that of Isaac Romane, some three miles to the southeast, and C. Springer's house, a like distance to the west. At that time there was no track on the interior prairie around him save that made by himself, and where now (1876) three school houses and a great many dwellings may be counted, there was but a sea of grass. M. V. Durstine and C. E. Graves soon followed by others, and Warren is rapidly assuming the appearance of a settled county. Groves and orchards are taking their places, and the face of the country is rapidly changing.
LA FAYETTE TOWNSHIP.
One of the earliest settlements in the county was made on the east side of Skunk River in the northern part of the county, by James Smith and his sons, Robert Bracken and his sons, and Joseph Brouhard. These were soon followed by Jonah Griffith, the Ballards, the Boyes, and the Andersons, on the east side of the river, while the Lamberts, the Sowers, the Burhams, the Primes also settled on the east side, and J. F. Brown on the west side, some of them near the site of Story City (Fairview originally). James Smith built a mill on Long Dick Creek near the center line north and south of section 18, township 85, range 23, and only a few rods north of where said line crosses the creek. Smithfield (an old recorded village, but now defunct) was a very short distance north of the mill. The mill, though small, was quite a convenience to the early settlers. Col. Scott's history of the mill is as follows: "It is said to have been constricted in a very primitive manner, the corner extending over the dam; the stones which were made of boulders, being set on the shaft over the wheel. J. S. Frazier (says the Col.) remembers to have visited the mill, and to have heard the old man express regret at its incompleteness, notwithstanding it had cost him nearly seventy-five dollars. It would probably grind two or three bushels per hour." (The writer hereof has been at said mill and thinks the above description a good one.)
Story City, or rather Fairview, was founded about the year 1855, Geo. Prime being one of the principal proprietors. it was surveyed by Eli H. French. Jenness built the first dry goods store. In its infancy it was the site of a saw-mill, the inevitable pioneer, that was run by Noah Handing, George Prime and Henry McCarthy. In the olden time the place was called Fairview.