Sioux City, Iowa

“ Paul our party divided, two of our photographers being instructed to take views of the falls, lakes and river-scenery thereabouts, while the other set out with the camera car, over the Chicago, St. Paul and Omaha Railroad, to Sioux City, and thence by the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad to Deadwood. There is nothing of particular interest to entertain the traveler in search of scenic wonders until Iowa is crossed and we reach the Big Sioux River; nor is the immediate district about Sioux City one affording scenery of much importance. ”

“ For many years Correctionville was a station on the old stage line from Fort Dodge to Sioux City. Another one of the early settlements was made on the Little Sioux River near the south line of the county at Smithland. In 1857, when Inkpaduta’s band of Sioux Indians came through this settlement on the way to Spirit Lake, hostile demonstrations were made and the settlers gathered and disarmed a number of the Indians. The savages stole other arms, however, and continued their journey up the valley. ”

“ THE SIXTH IOWA CAVALRY
THIS regiment was recruited from the State at large in the year 1862 and the early part of 1863. The Sioux Indians in the northwest, taking advantage of the Civil War in progress had, in 1862, begun a war of extermination upon the settlers in western Minnesota, in which many hundred men, women and children had been massacred. The Government was organizing two armies on the frontier to punish the Indians and protect the settlers. One of these armies was to move up the east side of the Missouri River. The army at Sioux City was under command of General John Cook. ”

“ It also perpetuates the memory of a great historic act which influenced the fate of three nations and opened the way to new liberties and increased the happiness of mankind. It changed the development of our people and gave a new pathway to the march of our young republic. It is this historical significance of the monument which induced the National Congress, the Legislature of Iowa, and the patriotic people of Sioux City to combine their efforts for its erection. ”

“ The completion of new railroads had opened northwestern Iowa to settlement, and new settlers were coming in by thousands, many being Catholics. Sioux City was the nearest place where there was a church or a priest, and Father Lenehan was called on to attend to the spiritual wants of those settlers, scattered over an immense territory, including all that portion of Iowa west of the Little Sioux 503River and north to the Minnesota line, and consisting of about ten counties. ”

“ Daily communication is already had by rail with the cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, and Duluth, and in the near future another, and, perhaps, in some respects; the most important link of all, that connecting St. Paul with Omaha and the Union Pacific Railway, known as the St. Paul and Sioux City Road. This line traverses the most fertile district in the State, as well as the most populous, following up the rich valley of the Minnesota to Mankato, where it leaves the river, holding a southwest direction for Sioux City in Iowa. ”

“ She also initiated the first church literary clubs of Sioux City, which were afterwards taken up by other churches until from the nucleus in Unity Church there extended throughout Sioux City an ever broadening circle of literary life. Miss Safford resigned her Sioux City pastorate in June, 1899, to accept a call to Des Moines. In addition to her work at Des Moines, Miss Safford is secretary of the Iowa Unitarian Association, traveling from place to place, organizing, advising and stimulating the churches. Her work has always been largely missionary. ”

“ During these times a seventy-mile drive in a springless wagon was a common experience.
In 1870 Father Gunn was transferred to Sioux City. His charge was St. Mary's parish which then consisted of a modest frame structure on West Seventh street, across Perry creek. At that time the priest's house consisted of a one room structure. Father Gunn after a short time in Sioux City was transferred to Dubuque Cathedral, where he remained three and one-half years and went thence to Burlington, where he remained till 1880, when he came to Cedar Rapids to succeed Father Lowry. ”

“ LEWIS, MARION F., Pvt., 2745 8th Ave., Council Bluffs, Iowa. LINDBLOM, EMIL, Pvt., Oakland, Iowa. LINDSTROM, FRANK, Pvt., 525 19th Ave., Council Bluffs, Iowa. LISSNER, ERNEST N., Kinsley, Iowa. LOETZ, THEODORE H., Sgt., 1602 Myrtle St., Sioux City, Iowa. LOMBARD, RICHARD, Corp., 314 Joliet St., Helena, Mont. LUCE, ELWYN R., Pvt., Hinton, Iowa. McCARTEN, JOHN, Pvt., 513 Des Moines, St., Keokuk, Iowa. McCOMB, JOHN, Corp., Woodbine, Iowa. McDANIEL, ARTHUR B., Corp., Riverside, N. M. McDONALD, JOHN S., 710 W. 3d St., Sioux City, Iowa. McEWEN, EDWARD, Pvt., 1324 6th Ave., Council Bluffs, Iowa. ”

“ In February, 1857, the Sioux chief selected about thirty of his warriors and, accompanied by their squaws, to allay suspicion on part of the settlers, started up the Little Sioux Valley. The chief sent detached parties to the settler’s cabins to take their arms, ammunition, provisions and cattle, and leave them defenseless and destitute. The snow was deep, the cold intense, the settlers few and widely separated, beyond reach of aid, and were compelled to submit to every outrage the Sioux chose to perpetrate. Resistance would have brought certain death. ”

“ But after the year 1865 the county government passed under the control of honest settlers and the frauds ceased. In 1858 a Mr. Barnes laid out the town of Sioux Rapids near the Little Sioux River and, being a man of property, hoped to be able to build up an important place. In 1859 the Sioux Indians were again threatening the frontier settlements and Mr. Barnes sent his son-in-law to Fort Dodge to procure arms for the defense of the settlers. ”

“ Canal, see Mississippi river.
Capital, location, I, 189, 195, 196, 240, 246, 257, 278; removal, 351; cities, see Belmont, Burlington, Des Moines, Iowa City.
Capitol building, I, 202, 206, 207, 210, 214, 240, 351, 359, 360; III, 32, 49, 210; commissioners on, 48, 49, 140, 210; opening of, 128, 129.
Captains of Artillery, see J. M. Coon, Fletcher, Goode, Griffith, Hayden, J. A. Jones, Reed, Spoor, M. C. Wright.
Captives of Sioux at Spirit Lake, see women. ”

“ With the Indians in a most unhappy and vengeful state of mind the Traverse des Sioux Treaty lands were thrown open for settlement in 1853. For several years people had settled along the border of this territory patiently awaiting the opening. Assurances were given the settlers that the Sioux were all established upon their reserve seventy miles north of Iowa’s northern boundary. With these assurances of safety, the settlers rapidly pushed to the westward of the Des Moines River which hitherto had been the farthest limit of their movement. ”

“ That night the Sioux warriors celebrated the butchery of twenty men, women and children in the true Indian fashion, with blackened faces, keeping time in their war dance to the beating of drums, circling over the bloodstained snow with unearthly yells among the mutilated bodies of their victims, until exhausted by their horrid orgies. ”

“ The battle was one of the bloodiest ever fought on Iowa soil. Hand to hand the savages fought with a desperation never surpassed in Indian warfare. The Sioux were fighting for life and their assailants to revenge the slaughter of their friends. The conflict lasted for many hours. The defeat of the Sioux was overwhelming. More than three hundred of their dead were left on the field of battle. ”

“ This was the last battle between the Sioux and Foxes in Iowa.
A band of Sioux, under Si-dom-i-na-do-ta, engaged in two battles with the Pottawattamies in northwestern Iowa. One was fought near Twin Lakes in Calhoun County and the other on the South Lizard in Webster County. The Sioux were both times the victors. These were the last Indian battles in Iowa as the various tribes soon after left the State for their western reservations. The Sioux were the most warlike and treacherous of all of the tribes which have at any time had homes in this State. ”

“ Upon reaching the Pea settlement in Boone County, he spread the report that his family had been massacred by the Indians. The settlers at once organized a party to punish the Sioux. Che-meuse, or “Johney Green,” a Musquakie chief, was at Elk Rapids, sixteen miles below, with several hundred of his band. He furnished twenty-six warriors for the expedition, which was placed under his command and piloted by Lott. When they reached his claim the Sioux had gone, and the wife and children of Lott were there without food or shelter. ”

“ The captives suffered greatly in this hurried retreat, wading through deep snow and swollen streams, cold, hungry and worn out, and it is a wonder they survived. Before they reached the Big Sioux River, the horses taken from the massacred settlers had died from starvation, their bodies were cut up for food and the loads they had carried were transferred to the backs of the squaws and the four white women.
Six weeks of terrible suffering and horrors unspeakable had been endured by the four young women when they reached the Big Sioux River. ”

“ The great Siouan race occupied nearly all the upper valley of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries. North of them dwelt the Ojibways, an Algonquin tribe with an entirely different language. The Sioux nation proper originally occupied a vast territory, and in the middle of the nineteenth century they still held the southern half of Minnesota, a portion of Wisconsin and Iowa, all of the Dakotas, part of Montana, nearly half of Nebraska, and small portions of Colorado and Wyoming. ”

“ At that day the old chief, Keokuk, boasted of having the handsomest site for a big village that could be found on the river, and since that day it has grown to be a large and elegant city, with wide streets, fine public buildings, nice churches, school-houses, elegant residences, extensive business houses, wholesale and retail stores, manufactories, and a flourishing Medical University with elegant buildings, which has been in successful operation for more than twenty years. The United States District Court for Southern Iowa is also located here. The city is well provided with good hotels. ”

“ It is also worthy of remark, that notwithstanding the hostility between the Iowas and Sioux, the former, who are called by the latter Ayukba, (they sleep, or “sleepy ones”) , from which we probably got Iowa, remain much nearer their original location than the Shiens, or any of the other tribes, who dwelt in the Minnesota valley before the Dakotas. ”

“ With twenty-five or thirty fellow-tribesmen who were of like mind with himself, he set out for the Big Sioux River to take up a homestead like a white man. Far from urging it, Government officials disapproved and discouraged this brave undertaking. The Indians selected a choice location, forty miles above what is now the beautiful little city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and here they established the first Sioux citizen community. ”

“ Hospers was deeply interested in education and good government and as long as he lived wielded great influence in the Sioux County colony which he led to northwestern Iowa when that region was one vast wild prairie. ”

“ The cruelties perpetrated by the Sioux upon helpless women and children in this greatest of all Indian massacres, were never surpassed in atrocity by savages in any period of the world's history.
The tribes here mentioned are the principal ones that are known to have had a bona fide residence in the limits of the State of Iowa since it became known to the whites. All of these tribes occupying Iowa and claiming portions of it, either moved away or ceded their lands by treaty to the United States, as white settlers crowded upon them from the east. ”

“ Other companies were raised and all were united in the Northern Border Brigade, which effectually checked the incursion of the Sioux into northern Iowa. Captain Ingham has been an active force in the development of northwest Iowa for nearly half a century. ”

“ E. of Lausanne; is a mediæval town, with an old Gothic cathedral, and in the neighbourhood ruined castles.
Siout or Asioot (32) , capital of Upper Egypt; commands a fine view near the Nile, 200 m. S. of Cairo; has a few imposing mosques and a government palace; is a caravan station, and noted for its red and black pottery; occupies the site of the ancient city of Lycopolis.
Sioux or Dakota Indians, a North American Indian tribe, once spread over the territory lying between Lake Winnipeg (N.) and the Arkansas River (S.) , but now confined chiefly to South Dakota and Nebraska. ”

“ Ink-pa-du-tah brooded sullenly over the cruel murder of his mother and brother, believing that some of the white settlers were parties to the massacre and had aided Lott and his son to escape. The Sioux were greatly incensed upon learning that the head of their murdered chief had been taken to Homer and nailed upon the outside of a house, and they threatened to be revenged upon the whites. These facts were all procured from Major Williams, who had been active in his efforts to bring the murderers to justice, and was familiar with the true history of the massacre. ”

“ We should have been friends, and would have been, if we had not each had a self which we were all too anxious to defend."
After the Sioux had finished their work of horror, Minnesota men, aided by volunteers from Iowa and Wisconsin, pursued and captured the murderers of one thousand men, women and children ”

“ The Council Tent was in darkness! The lights were out in the teepees. The whole camp was wrapped in solid slumber. And as we sunk to rest in our bed of new-mown hay, we breathed a prayer for the slumbering Sioux around us; May the Cloud, by day, and the Pillar of Fire, by night, guide the Sioux Nation through the Red Sea of Savagery, superstition and sin to the Promised Land of Christian Civilization. ”