History of Concord Township

HISTORY OF THE COUNTIES OF  Woodbury and Plymouth, IOWA, A. Warner & Co., Publishers 1890-91,  pages 383-385

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This information courtesy of the Woodbury County Genealogical Society.

 


 

Concord Township was created September 3, 1873, and organized under the name o£ Joy township, but by petition of citizens interested, that title was changed in January, 1871, to Concord. Following is the order of the supervisors: "All of township eighty-nine, range forty-six, to be detached from Sioux City township and formed into a new township to be called Joy township." The boundaries are Plymouth County on the north, Woodbury and Floyd townships on the south, Banner on the east and Sioux City on the west.

 

Owing to the proximity of Concord to Sioux City, the township has rather been overshadowed in the way of any kind of business or other enterprise than farming. There is no post-office, no church, no stove, no tavern, no mill and no railroad, with the exception of jus a touch of the iron rails at the extreme northwestern point of the northwestern section, number six, but no station. The limits of Sioux City on the east is the line of Concord, and to that thriving city all things trend in the township. But the land is fine, although broken and very rolling. Here it is that one may see the singular beauty of this extraordinary landscape. To pass over it leaves the impression of being very much elevated, and o£ course it is correct, but it is not higher than the rolling prairie lauds in the interior of the state. Immense regularly rounded waves of the richest soil on earth, with the possible exception of the valleys of the Nile and Amazon, rise up to the view on every hand, all green and seemingly shaven with a lawn-mower as clean cut as a landscape gardener could do it. Only the fields of waving corn diversify the surface, and in July, here and there in the distance, may be seen a field of golden wheat. The wonderful depth of this soil is marvelous, and its richness beyond the conception of the ordinary eastern farmer. A recent writer in a leading periodical, discourses so well and analytically upon the soil of this section that an extended quotation from the same will be here made: "Dr. Hoyden, in his report to the government, says this soil contains over thirty per cent of phosphates of lime. Indian traditions that have been handed down show the extraordinary productiveness of this section to have been well known to them, for in this vicinity, at the mouth of the Floyd, the Big Sioux and the James rivers, they cultivated their corn, and in the fall of the year, before going on a hunt, ‘cached’ the crops in large excavations carefully concealed from rival tribes. The chief advantage of this soil, however, lies not merely in its exceptional fertility, but its marvelous capacity to resist the effects of both drought and rainfall. As a matter of fact, a failure of the corn crop is unknown here. An examination of the soil shows that the surface of this section is one mass of pulverized deposit varying in depth from 100 to 200 feet it forms both the soil and subsoil. Its fineness is due to the soft composition of two rocks of this vicinity which readily crumbled away under atmospheric influences and glacial action into an unfathomed deposit of inexhaustible productiveness. Now, remembering that this soil is at least 100 feet deep before the stratified rooks are reached, two vital consequences follow: In the first place there are near the surface, no indurated clay or rock strata to retain excessive moisture, consequently the soil is naturally under drained and can absorb an amount of rain fall that would be disastrous in any other place in the world. On account of the same conditions no other soil can equally resist the effects of drought. The vast depth of fine deposit acts as a sponge whereas a thinner sod in a hard basis would soon be impoverished'.

Concord is well watered by a number of small streams, which have their source in numberless springs, some of which are quite large, two of the largest being in the northern part of the township. The settlement of Concord came comparatively late, although it is so close to the first settlements at Sergeant's .Bluff and Sioux City. The broken appearance of the country, and the unknown quality of the land, which seemed to those who did not investigate the matter, to be only sand hills, impelled the early settlers to seek the bottom lands, and those where there was more timber. Peter Eberly. however, was one of the first to come in and make a settlement here. The township is well provided with schools of its own, in addition to the advantages; it has in the fine schools of Sioux City.


 

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