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GEOLOGY OF HOWARD COUNTY

LOCATION AND AREA

Howard County belongs to the northern tier of counties and is the third in order counting westward from the northeast corner of the state. The artificial boundaries of Howard County are the state of Minnesota on the north,  Winneshiek County on the east,  Chickasaw County on the south,  and Mitchell County on the west.

The four southern townships,  as organized for the administration of  local government,  are nine miles from north to south,  and so each embraces one congressional township and half.  The northern townships are each only five miles in length from north to south, sections 1 to 6 in each case being omitted.  The other four townships are of the usual size.  The county is rectangle,  the dimensions being approximately  twenty miles from north to south and twenty-four miles from east to west.  The area is therefore 480 square miles more or less,  the variation from the theoretical area depending on the natural convergence of north-south lines and errors in the original surveys.

ECONOMIC PRODUCTS

Quarry Stone

The largest  quarry in Howard County is operated by John Hallman near the Fair Ground,  in the western edge of Cresco.  It has been opened by working down beneath the surface of the level prairie.  The rock is earthy,  magnesian,  rather soft,  but it seems to be capable of standing the weather fairly well.  At some points the quarry has been worked to a depth of twenty feet.

H. C. Salisbury owns a quarry in the southwest quarter of the the southwest quarter of section 34,  Vernon Springs Township. At the base of the Salisbury quarry there are courses of bluish limestone.  The upper part of the Salisbury quarry has produced a considerable quantity of good building stone.   Also found in the quarry  are fossils mostly brachiopods and the shells are well preserved.

Patterson Quarry,  near Vernon Springs is capable of furnishing quality stone but at present there are no shipping  facilities, and local demand does not justify continuous operation.

M. H. Jones has a somewhat extensively worked quarry in the southeast quarter of section 24, Chester Township.   The Jones quarry has rock as found in the Hallman quarry near Cresco.

Glen Roy mills in section 19 of Forrest City Township, there is an exposure in the river bank of nodular limestone. Between the mill and the bridge at Chester there is an exposure of soft magnesian limestone stained with streaks of iron oxide, as found in the Jones quarry.

Croft quarry, at Elma, in section 1, south of the middle of Afton Township.  The Croft quarry lies west of the railroad.  Limestone beds corresponding to the upper part of the Croft quarry have been worked for building stone at points from three and half to four miles west of Elma.

M. Monaghan, near the center of section 8 and  J. Roche in the western edge of section 9, in the southern part of Afton Township are surface mines that have not been operated for years.  Soil has washed down over the face of the layers of limestone,  and growth of vegetation has helped to secure the situation.

Henry Miller, has an abandoned quarry three-quarters mile south  of Elma.

Florenceville Mill,   near the town has been quarried to a considerable extent for a good quality of stone for rough masonry. Another nearby quarry,  the Trenton can furnish an inexhaustible supply of quarry stone when the demand justifies the operation of the quarry.

Clays

Cresco Brick and Tile Works, owned by Wheeler and Marshall,  is the most successful clay-working plant in the county.  The clay used is Iowan drift,  which is passed between rollers to crush the pebbles. The pant is equipped with a stiff mud, end cut Brewer machine having a capacity of 20,000 brick per day.  A part of the product is passed through a Raymond repress machine.  In addition to brick,  the works turn out drain tile ranging from 3 to 8 inches in diameter.  The raw products are dried in sheds,  with little loss from checking.  The burning is done in two round down-draft kilns. The plant operates a little more than half a year.

  Lime Spring Brick Yard, located north of railroad in the eastern edge of Lime Spring.  It used blue Kansan clay which is not very successful and the plant was shut down at the time the locality was visited.

Road Materials

City of Cresco,  has availed itself of the opportunities offered by readily accessible beds of limestone,  and on a little plat of ground at the east end of the  Hallman Quarry, it owns and operates a crusher to furnish the macadam used in making permanent street improvements.

The county has Buchanan gravel everywhere,  with several neighborhood gravel pits within easy hauling distance of any piece of road needing improvement.

Water Supplies

Water for domestic and farm purposes is obtained from the permanent streams, from springs, from wells in gravel terraces, wells in the drift, and wells bored in limestone beneath the drift.

City of Cresco, obtains supplies of water from two drilled wells that do not exceed 200 feet in depth.

Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Co. well near Cresco is 1,158 feet deep, according to Norton Report, Iowa State, Vol. VI, page 201, (Quote) " It was drilled about the year 1875, and has not been used for an unknown length of time.  This well must have gone down some distance into the Saint Croix sandstone. Nothing was ascertained concerning the quality of water it furnished".

John P. Thelen, in Jamestown Township found water in gravel at 252 feet from the surface. "Chips from an old rotten log" were found in the northern part of Jamestown, at a depth of 250 feet while drilling a well.

Water Powers

Water power has been developed along the Upper Iowa and Oneota River at a number of points in Howard County.

Florenceville,  A well built and excellently equipped mill.

Foreston, Lime Spring, Glen Roy, and Chester mills, all busy in supplying the needs of the local and distant markets..

On the Turkey River there are two mills.

Sovereign Mill, about a mile above Vernon Springs

Salisbury Mill, at the village named. 

New Oregon Mill, some years ago it was wrecked by high water and no effort has been made to restore it..

Summary

Howard County will always rank as one of the great agricultural counties of the State of Iowa.  Apart from her soils, her chief geological resources are found in inexhaustible deposits of road materials forming widely distributed beds of sand and gravel, in excellent lime burning rocks which conditions of the market may some time make it possible  to utilize, and in an inexhaustible  supply of a fair quality of building stone.  As fuel becomes scarcer, and cheaper methods of generating electrical energy are developed,  the water powers will be greatly improved and their energy utilized in a variety of profitable ways.  There is nothing to indicate the possibility of successful mining of any kind.  It is certain that there are no workable coal beds in the county, and there are no probabilities of finding either gas or oil,  no matter how far borings may be carried.  Various lines of manufacturing may possibly be established with success;  but the chief resources of the county will always lie in her excellent soils,  her chief industry will be their cultivation.  It is to the development of the possible productiveness of the soil that the attention of the most earnest and most thoroughly trained minds should be directed.  To energy expended in this direct it is possible to predict satisfactory rewards

Ref:  History of Chickasaw and Howard Counties,  1919,  Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 2,  Page 39 to 71, Edited and transcribed by Leonard Granger.