Council Bluffs (Earlier Known as Kanesville)

This area of the Louisiana Purchase was home to the Missouri, Pottawattamie, and Otoe when Lewis and Clark made their epic journey up the Missouri River in 1804. A council held on the bluffs among members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Missouri and Otoe tribes prompted Capt. Clark to name the area "Council Bluffs."

In the 1840s several thousand Mormons arrived in the area. It was here in 1847 that Brigham Young was elected president of the Mormon Church. When gold was discovered in California, the Mormon Trail through Council Bluffs soon replaced the Oregon Trail as the primary route to the West, and thousands of fortune hunters passed through.

Description of Council Bluffs City, Iowa, 1855

COUNCIL BLUFFS

The following description of our city and country, we take from the "Editorial Correspondence" of the Lily, a semi-monthly paper, published at Richmond, Indiana. Some of our readers will recognize the authoress, who is now a permanent resident of this place:

Council Bluffs City is located on the east side of the Missouri River, in Iowa, instead of on the west, or Nebraska side, as it is laid down on most maps. It lies about three miles from the river--the level lands, or "bottoms" being here about that distance in width--and then commences a chain of high hills or bluffs, which line the Missouri for thousands of miles. These bluffs are composed of immense piles of yellow marl, varying in height from fifty to two hundred and fifty feet, and thrown into every conceivable shape and form--rounded, oblong, conical and peaked. Sometimes we see them covered with trees or bushes, but most commonly with only grass and flowers. They present at this season of the year, robed in their rich carpet of green, a delightful appearance. Among these bluffs are numerous beautiful valleys, sufficient in extent for large farms and through which clear and pellucid springs of water flow gurgling down to join the mighty Missouri--forming, as they find their way across the bottoms, streams which glisten in the sun as pure as silver.

It was along one of these valleys, a fourth of a mile in width, and extending for upwards of half a mile in the bluffs, that the old town of Kanesville was built. Here a log city was constructed, and here for several years dwelt from two to eight thousand of that singular people who have now found a home in the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake. These people, or the most of them, remained here until 1852, when they took their departure--selling out, or surrendering up their claims to the "Gentiles." Hundreds of the log cabins in which these people lived have disappeared, but many are still standing.

The Gentiles who succeeded the Mormons, soon began to build better houses. Several good frame and brick buildings have already been constructed, including a three-story brick hotel and the land office, besides a number of stores and private residences. Others are in the process of erection, and will be carried forward as fast as materials and laborers can be obtained. The sawmills and brickyards now in operation will furnish facilities for many substantial improvements the present season.

On all sides we see the work of beautifying the town going forward. Gardens are being fenced, trees planted, streets opened and graded, and every preparation for accommodating a large population.

The city is extending out on the bottoms towards the river. The bottom lands here being high and dry, and in no danger of being overflowed the probability is that at no distant day they will be covered with dwellings, stores, and shops for at least a mile or two in extent. These lands are considered very valuable, and are held at high prices by their owners. The soil is extremely rich and productive, and finely adapted either to farming or gardening.

We have a population of two thousand people, mostly Americans; and this number will undoubtedly be largely increased the present year, as the place is attracting considerable attention in all parts of the country, and people are flocking in here to settle and to make investments in real estate.

The land office is crowded with strangers eager to secure the best chances in government land in this district, and the best sites are being rapidly taken up. There is still an abundance of good government land in Western Iowa, and will be for some months to come. The issuing of the new Land Warrants this summer will greatly reduce the size of Uncle Sam's farm in this State, as the owners of them will send or bring them here, by the hundreds, for location.

There are two newspapers published here, administration and Republican. We have two church edifices nearly completed, belonging to the Methodists and Congregationalists, the former of wood, the latter of brick. A public garden has been opened this spring which will furnish a supply of fruit and ornamental trees, bushes, vines and shrubbery for the use of our citizens, and which will tend greatly to beautify our yards and gardens, as well as to put us in possession of the luscious fruits we have enjoyed in our eastern homes.

We have a regular city charter, obtained in 1853, of the legislature at which time the name of the place was changed from Kanesville to Council Bluffs, by which it is now known over the whole country.

Situated as we are three hundred miles west of the railroads connecting the Mississippi with the east, we of course neither hear the shrill music of the locomotive nor see trains of cars dashing through our streets with a velocity that outstrips the speed of the light-footed deer; but we are living in full expectation of the day when these things will be as familiar to us as they are now to my eastern readers. This city will be the terminus of the first railroad across the State, and it is fondly hoped and expected that three years hence we shall be startled by the shrill whistle of the "iron horse," as he comes to bathe his heated forehead in the waters of the Missouri. And from here, or from Omaha, directly opposite, will he set out on his long journey to the most western limit of the continent. Then Council Bluffs will no longer be "out of the world," but directly in the centre of it--and many who now hesitate about making their homes here, will regret that their doubts and fears debarred them from the privilege of uniting their labors with their more enterprising countrymen, in building up a great and prosperous community in the very centre of the Union.

Come then, I say to all, to Western Iowa--and to Council Bluffs. Send here your money and your Land Warrants, and secure a part of the rich prairie lands which border the Missouri, and you will secure for yourselves and families a patrimony at once ample and abundant for all your, or their wants. And come soon; the choicest lands and finest locations are being rapidly secured, and those who delay much longer will find that they have come too late.

A. B. (Amelia Bloomer)

Source: Chronotype, Wednesday, July 4, 1855

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