OLD STEEL POST IS

STATE LINE MARKER

Bedford Free Press — T. P. Armstrong tells us that he recently saw a state line post situated just south of Section 25 in Jackson township, southeast of the Engle farm, where It was placed before the Civil war.   

It is located in the center of the road, a steel post that sticks out of the ground a couple of feet, a foot square across the top and on the Iowa side, the wore "Iowa", and on the Missouri side the word "Missouri." It probably extends into the ground ten or twelve feet. 

Curtis Bent says his mother served dinner to the group of men who hauled the post there in an early day and set it. It was brought overland from St Joseph, Mo., by ox teams, sixteen yoke of oxen being required to haul it. Similar posts were placed every ten miles along the state line, it is said. 

Need for such markers may seem obscure at this time, but back in those days they were set because there was some dispute about where the line was. Early history of this part of the state has it that Captain L.. T. McCoun, now dead, used to get out the militia frequently to chase Missourians back into their own domain when they came up to Bedford to try collecting taxes on property in the disputed border land. 

Recalling conditions of Missouri roads a few years back before the paving program was adopted makes one wonder how in the world 16 yokes of oxen were able to transport so large a post so far from St. Joseph.

Lenox Time Table, Lenox, Iowa Thursday November 19, 1931