"The History of Decatur County, Iowa: 1839 - 1970"

by Himena V. Hoffman
Published by Decatur County Historical Society, Leon IA, 1970
 
Decatur County Railroad Lines, Part II, Pages 82 - 83
Transcription by Carmelita
 
Later the line was extended to St. Joseph, Missouri. In 1885 the stations on this line in Decatur County were Garden Grove, Smith's, Leon, Davis City, Bethany Junction, Lamoni and Tuskegoo.

In 1879-80 the Humeston and Shenandoah Railway, first owned by the Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska line, reached Van Wert and by 1885 the stations in the county on this line were LeRoy Weldon, Van Wert, DeKalb, and Grand River.

In 1881 the Des Moines, Osceola, Southern Railroad was formed and by 1882 had reached Decatur City where $20,000 had been contributed in tax money besides subscriptions. Here it stopped waiting for bids that would decide where it would go. When Leon offered $30,000 and the right-of-way to the South line of Eden township, it turned its track at a right angle and came to Leon. In 1884 it ended at Cainsville and in 1885 was bankrupt. It's Decatur County stations were: Van Wert, Kingston, Decatur City, Leon, and Blockley. Decatur County gave it $89,000 plus miles of right-of-way. The bankrupt company was taken over by the Burlington, the same company which bought the Humeston and Shenandoah line.

With the wages paid at the time, the price of what the farmer raised and the profit on goods sold by the merchants, it seems almost impossible to credit what it cost the people of Decatur County to secure the coming of the railroads, yet fantastic as it seems, at least a quarter of a million dollars much have been given in cash and grants.

Through their efforts the business men of Leon lived after 1883 in what they considered a railroad center. For some years there were two stations, one at the South end of main street, the other at the foot of the hill that ran west, south of the school house just below where Pamela Patterson lived when she wrote her letter in April, 1853.

But to turn again to the men of whom Frank Garber wrote and to write first of the Businessmen of Leon.

Two of these had opened stores during the first years of the war, become the leading merchants and then retired leaving to their sons the business each had established.

Stephen White Hurst was only twenty-six when he opened his store in Leon but he was related to the Hursts in Maryland who were known as "the merchant princes of the eastern shore: and he had been a storekeeper at Blairsburg just before he came here, learning the needs of this section.

Within two years he moved from the small place where he started into Leon's first brick business house. By 1870 he was well established and by 1883 he was ready to retire from storekeeping leaving the management to his sons. In 1885 he became president of the Exchange Bank, a position he held until the end of the century.

In 1889 he was appointed Commissioner from Iowa to the Paris Exposition, where he spent several months.

Mr. Hurst was exacting as to the appearance of his store and in the arrangement of his stock of goods. He dressed in accordance with his idea of the dignity of a leading merchant and later that of a banker.

While his business was never neglected and his family was the center of his life, he was an active Mason and an influential Democrat.

The other merchant who arrived during the war was Aaron Long. When Mr. Long arrived in 1860 he had been engaged in making his living for over twenty years. He was forty years old and unlike S. W. Hurst who came with a bride, he had been married for ten or more years. He was from North Carolina but had come north some years before the war. Unlike Mr. Hurst with his community interests, Aaron Long centered his interest in his store, in the investment of his profits in land and in his family. In 1871 he built a brick building on the site where the Hawkins House had stood.

Both S. W. Hurst and Aaron Long took pride in stocking their shelves with merchandise of good quality. As Frank Garber wrote of Horry Long, he "sold bleached muslin which we knew would never shrink."
 
 
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