Excerpt from Illustrated Centennial Sketches, Map and Directory of Union County, Iowa In presenting the Centennial Sketehes, Map and Directory of Union County to the subscribers, we desire to express our appreciation of your good will, co-operation and patronage. The work was undertaken in the belief that such a publication, carefully compiled, was demanded by the citizens of the county, and our later experience has shown our judgment well founded. The topographical part of the work has been carefully, and, we believe, thoroughly performed; and, as a precaution, after the tracings were ready for the engraver's hands, we submitted them to the careful inspection of well-posted residents of the several townships for final correction, before giving them to the lithographer. In this part of the work we have spared neither time nor expense, that we might offer you a correct map of the county. In the sketches of the early history, we have gathered facts and figures from a large number of the old settlers, and, so far as possible, have sought to reconcile occurrences, dates and circumstances, so that all might harmonize. Laying no claims to the qualifications of an author, we have sought to place in a permanent form scraps of early history, which, with the death of the present generation, unless preserved, would be irrecoverably lost. We have invited facts and incidents from a large number of old residents; some have not seen fit to furnish us with the data in their possession, while many others have lent us every assistance in their power; to one and all we extend our hearty acknowledgments for favors received. The Directory is as complete as it is possible to make it, considering the transient character of the inhabitants of some portions of the county. The digest of laws of the State, tabular statements of county growth, personal sketches, and the various other features of the work, we trust, may be found interesting and profitable. A larger number of engravings might have been inserted, but the stringency of the times deterred many from making investments in that direction. We desire especially to express our obligations for information and favors to II. A. Botleman, County Auditor; B. F. Martz, Recorder; Samuel Riggs, J. S. Lytle, J. H. Lemon, G. A. Ide, J. A. White, R. J. McKee, Rev. John Clough, R. C. Carter, W. T. Cornwall, A. C. Cooper, Mrs. Benj. Lamb and family, I. K. White, L. J. Williamson, J. S. Lorimor, William Groesbeck, Henry Groesbeck, Ira Seeley, T. M. Robinson, J. F. Bishop, Geo. W. Emerson, J. D. Spaulding, Dr. J. A. Day, and many others, who will ever have our gratitude and best wishes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

In 1978 historian Joseph Wall wrote that Iowa was “still seeking to assert its own identity. . . . It has no real center where the elite of either power, wealth, or culture may congregate. Iowa, in short, is middle America.” In this collection of well-written and accessible essays, originally published in 1996, seventeen of the Hawkeye State’s most accomplished historians reflect upon the dramatic and not-so-dramatic shifts in the middle land’s history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Marvin Bergman has drawn upon his years of editing the Annals of Iowa to gather contributors who cross disciplines, model the craft of writing a historical essay, cover more than one significant topic, and above all interpret history rather than recite it. In his preface to this new printing, he calls attention to publications that begin to fill the gaps noted in the 1996 edition. Rather than survey the basic facts, the essayists engage readers in the actual making of Iowa’s history by trying to understand the meaning of its past. By providing comprehensive accounts of topics in Iowa history that embrace the broader historiographical issues in American history, such as the nature of Progressivism and Populism, the debate over whether women’s expanded roles in wartime carried over to postwar periods, and the place of quantification in history, the essayists contribute substantially to debates at the national level at the same time that they interpret Iowa’s distinctive culture.