Sac County, Iowa Early History

“This sketch is intended principally as a pen-picture of Sac County as it now is, and will include a short outline of its history and a few incidents of the life of the early settlers.

“The early settlers of Sac, though they had the advantage of being able to try fruit raising under the protection of a considerable belt of timber, had small faith in the county as adapted to the growth of fruits. Consequently it was not until some ten or twelve years after the settlement of the county began that any attention was given to this important branch of the industries of the county. When proper attention was given to the matter, it was speedily demonstrated that Sac County was well fitted for fruit growing, and there are now many orchards, vineyards and fruit garden dotting the fair surface of Sac-shire. Apples, grapes, plums, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries, etc., grow rapidly and yield surely and abundantly, and the quality is unsurpassed anywhere. We are informed that pears are also successfully grown in parts of the county. In the line of vegetables there is nothing usually grown in a temperate climate which will not grow here and that in extraordinary perfection. This section is the garden of Iowa, as Iowa is the Garden State of the Union. The dry, pure air of our unexcelled climate gives to trees and plants a healthy growth, and the fruits and vegetables are solid and delicately flavored and tinted, as far excelling the coarse flavor and blowzy coloring given to the same fruits by the hot an d humid air of California and Oregon as the apple excels the pumpkin. You say the California fruit is larger than ours! Oh, well, the pumpkin is larger than the apple; but the pumpkin requires a good deal of cooking and spicing before it is eatable, and if you get a California apple you had better use that for cooking also. But our northern Iowa apples are of the medium size, of the finest flavor and will keep longer than any apple grown in a warm climate. Therefore the Iowa apple is in the near future the apple of commerce and it is not unlikely that the principal future industry of Iowa, may be fruit-growing Apples are met not the only fruit which the Iowa soil and climate give a finer flavor than elsewhere. Nowhere does the Concord grape come to such perfection as in Iowa. And although our fruits and vegetables do not rival those of the Pacific coast in size, they are unsurpassed even in that minor particular by those of any other, section in the Mississippi Valley or any section on the Atlantic slope.

The population of this county by the census of 1880 was 9,300, but it is now estimated at over 11,000. This increase is partially due to a narrow gauge railway (a branch of the Wabash) which is in process of construction, and which will run across the county, passing through Sac City, thus giving additional shipping and traveling facilities to the people of the county. Depot grounds for the road have been laid out near the court house in the city named.

As stated elsewhere a complete list of the county officers from date of the organization of the county to present date is not obtainable, but the following are the present officers: Treasurer: Philip Schaller; Auditor, A.D. Peck; Sheriff, H. L. Willson; Clerk of Courts, Chas. E. Lane; Recorder, N.D. Flack; Superintendent of Schools, H. T. Martin; Surveyor, Chas. Pettis; Supervisors, Wm. Hawks, Chairman; H. Reinhart, Peirce Coy.

Sac County Iowa, History of Western Iowa, 1882

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