History of Cherokee County |
History of Cherokee County |
| CHEROKEE COUNTY in 1878 In the center of beautiful Northwestern Iowa is located Cherokee County, comprised of sixteen congressional townships, now composing as many civil divisions. It is twenty-four miles square. The Illinois Central Railroad enters it on the east line, near the center, and passes directly west across the entire county, making four stations within her limits. The greatest altitude of the railroad is reached on the eastern border of Cherokee, full 908 feet above the Mississippi at Dubuque, yet it makes such a rapid descent that in the course of twelve miles, at Cherokee village, it is but 565 feet above the same level, being a fall of 343 feet; and again, on the west side of the county, near Marcus, it has climbed up to a height of 877 feet, a rise from the county seat of 312 feet in 18 miles. This may serve to give the reader an idea of the general reality an immense valley through which runs from north to south the Little Sioux River, whose banks on either side slope out east and west attaining an elevation of over 300 feet, making the most beautiful as well as the most fertile valley in the State of Iowa; whose gorgeous banks, like serried columns, rise one above another, step by step, and spread themselves in the amazing amplitude of western grandeur, twelve miles one way and eighteen the other. Source: History of Cherokee County, Published by Cherokee County Historical Society, based on Cherokee Times articles, January 1878 |
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