was August 2, 1887, when Dr. J. M. Brown started the Cambridge Garland, now the only paper there, and since October, 1888, edited by H. N. Silliman, and published at Maxwell.
Cambridge was the third post-office established within the county, following Nevada and Goshen, now Iowa Center, which were both commissioned in 1854. William G. Buswell, the first postmaster, was appointed April 21, 1856. His successors were as follows: William W. Williams, August 21, 1857; Joseph H. Jones, May 10, 1859; Jairus Chandler, April 28, 1860; Samuel Bossueot, November 14, 1861; Oliver Chamberlin, August 18, 1863; Albert M. Gillett, May 25, 1865; John D. Breezley, December 2, 1872; George D. Southwick, January 2, 1880; A. W. Southwick, November 5, 1883, and James B. Green, October 29, 1885.
Ames is the most widely known of the towns of Story County, as is well typified in its busy depot, where the North-Western traveler " changes cars for all points north, south, east and west" amid the clang of bells and snorts of iron-horses, or where the verdant freshmen by scores annually step off the trains and take the modest omnibus out to the beautiful acres of the Agricultural College and Farm, there to spend years in growing into the clear-minded finished graduate, who again takes the modest omnibus to the busy depot and buys a North-Western ticket into the busy world. But while these two streams of travel and student life pass through Ames, she has also a fixed population of probably 1,600, as the second town in the county. The traveler will not see this unless he leaves the broad and begrimed strip of railway grounds, which divides the town, and, taking a few steps to the north, finds himself on Onondaga, the business street, from which extends north, Douglass Street, the Euclid Avenue of Ames, lined as it is with the finest residences of the place. Here, too, will be found a certain mixture of the civilian and collegian tone typified somewhat in the papers and social life of the Ames Social Club.
And yet but twenty-six years ago this was the site of a cluster of the much maligned " frog ponds of Story County." John I. Blair, of the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River Railroad and the Iowa Land Company, had an eye on that spot as a station for the first great trunk line across the State. The land had been entered on February 11, 1855, and December 26, 1857, by Hoyt Sherman and Sarah Weymouth, respectively, but Isaac Black had secured a strip of it, and when the survey in 1864 crossed his land he objected unless he should receive what Mr. Blair thought was exhorbitant terms. Mr. and Mrs. A. Duff, now of Nevada, were quietly interested by Mr. Blair's friends to purchase the land privately, which lay so near their farm. This was done, and in December of that year the plat was made north of the track, and the railway completed on through to Boone. Onondaga was the name desired by Mrs. Duff, a New Yorker, but as Mr. Blair desired to immortalize the name of his friend, Oakes Ames, the infamous or unfortunate great Western railway contractor, a courteous compromise gate these names to the town and the principal street. Douglass was one of the contractors also, and Kellogg Street honored Mrs. Duff's maiden name. The first house was built immediately by Noah Webster on the site of Mr. Greeley's present home. H. F. Kingsbury erected the first frame stare on the site of the Maxwell House early in 1865, and became there the first merchant, host, railway and express agent and the first postmaster September 27, 1865, while the name was still College Farm ; it was changed to Ames January 15, 1866. It may be of interest to mention that while the present depot was building two wild