Life in Alton Iowa (Sioux County) in 1800s

Excerpts from Sioux County Herald newspaper in 1879 (15 years before Joseph and Elizabeth arrived here):

However fertile the soil,or however industrious the toiler, the trials, hardships, and difficulties of the first settlers are many. The first cause of their trials was the poverty of the people. Many had nothing to begin with save their health and courage and those family jewels that are the "pledges of love" and the "consumers of bread." Here they came in a vast rich and beautiful prairie country, but where not a house or store could anywhere be seen or found, where not a piece of bread could anywhere be obtained, or the flour to make it. The nearest market place of any consequence was at Sioux City, a distance of 45 miles. Crossing a trackless prairie for 45 miles for a sack of four or a letter can hardly be called "excellent facilities." In such a new country, flour and feed is dear. A year and half the first settlers have to live from "hand to mouth." After the prairie is broken it has to lie idle one year for the sod to rot. The next season it is ready to be sown. For a poor people to work for a year and a half without receiving remuneration or reaping any fruits of their labor is very trying and difficult, to say the least. With the severest economy and the most patient toil there was no way during the first year and a halt of the settlement to earn a cent of money.

Many lived for weeks and months in their covered wagon boxes. There was no time to build houses. The prairie must be broken in order that they may be able to sow and plant something the following year. One man shared with this author that he had plowed the first year for 3 weeks without seeing a human being save the members of his own housefold who lived in this wagon box. From morning to night he saw nothing but his oxen and the vast expanse of prairie.

After the "breaking season" was over, which lasts until July, they then made ready to build houses, which was by no means an easy task in a country where there is no building material. All the lumber, nails, etc. had to be hauled from Le Mars, a distance of 20 miles, or from Sioux City. Many had only an ox team to do this work. Buildnig under such circumstances is hard and very difficult work. The houses built were mostly small and inconvenient. But this band of hardy pioneers had the energy, faith, and spirit of endurance to pave the way and create a heritage of wealth, prosperity, and happiness for those who came after them.

All the trials and hardships of those early days are now past. A few acres of improved land can be rented almost anywhere for one year. The railroad company and real estate agents, as well as large land owners, have a number of acres broken on every section, so that newcomers can commence to sow and plant immediately and raise a good crop of wheat and corn the first year. Lumber, too, can now be had very cheap right here at the station in East Orange, where there are two large lumber yards. Stores can be found at nearly every street corner and filled with choicest goods. Only one thing is very much needed, the want of which is felt every day and is felt more and more as the colony grows and the resources of our rich and fertile soil are being developed, and that is a steam fouring mill to make into flour the thousands of bushels of wheat that we raise here every year.

In 1972 the Sioux City and St. Paul railroad was completed, running from south to north through the colony. This road opened up the great lumber markets of Minnesota and Wisconsin and the coal fields of Iowa, giving us a good home market for our wheat and every kind of produce.

Following the wake of the settler was the army of money usurers, who stood ready to take advantage of the poor and industrious people. With these usurers came the host of agents for different agricultural implements. But the people were poor and had no money to buy. But the agents must sell, at 10 percent interest. Notes are given, secured by chattel mortgage. Nearly all get in debt and are ignorant of the law, with many being easily led astray. These notes and the debt thereby created has been the greatest source of all the trials and difficulties of the early settlers. The agents are smooth-tongued and know how to trap the innocent farmer.

Many who came here 8 years ago with nothing but a yoke of oxen, a wagon, and a plow, a bed, and a stove would not sell out today for four thousand dollars. Improved farms cannot be bought here anywhere now, a fact that proves that the people, even under the greatest disadvantages of poverty and trails that attend every new settlement, did accumulate wealth.

Amid all the disadvantages and trials of a poor people, this colony has grown, advanced, and improved in the nine years of its history to the wonder of everyone who comes here, whether to visit or make it their home. Looking at the beautiful groves and improved farms that can be seen in every direction, one can hardly believe that all this, nine years ago, was one vast prairie. The Rev. O.J. Squires, state agent for the American Bible Society, who travels all over the state, said: "You have here the best of Iowa. For beauty of location and richness of soil, I know no place to equal this."

Whatever trials and privations the people have been obliged to endure, they have aways had enought to eat and to spare. In 1877, which was a grasshopper year, 140,000 bushes of No. 1 were sold here at East Orange. At least 280,000 bushes of wheat was raised, along with much flax seed, rye, and oats. Last year was the worst of any since the settlement of the colony. The wheat was blighted by the copious rains that followed the intense heat so that it was damaged for the market. Yet this "rejected" wheat made excellent flour, so that there was an abundance of bread.

It is a great mistake to depend upon one kind of farm produce for the support of the family. There should be a diversification of crops. There is too great a passion for immense tracts and great wheat farms. A wiser course is to look to many sources for profit rather than to one. There is no better county than Sioux County for the raising of stock. Good water and grazing is in abundance. Disease of any kind among cattle is unknown here. Our climate has healthy and invigorating influence upon cattle and upon all livestock generally. Our wool, beef, butter, and cheese are unsurpassed. At the Inter State Fair held in Minneapolis, we were awarded the premium for our dairy products. There is no reason why every farmer should not have from 50-100 head of cattle. Pasturage costs nothing. Hay costs only the expense of cutting and stacking. The immense quantity of corn should be fed to hogs. Hog cholera has never been known here. Diversified agriculture is the most sure and profitable in every respect and at all times. The more extensively any given crop is cultivated to the exclusion of other crops, the more often will it meet with disappointment and failure, and will eventually exhaust the soil.