Established: January 15, 1851
Organized: July 17, 1855
County Seat: Cresco
417 Square miles Howard County was named for General Tilghman
Ashurst Howard, who held various offices in Tennessee and Indiana, and who was
long time friends of Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston. Howard
County was organized July 17, 1855 by order of Judge James Lyon of Chickasaw
County, and an election followed on August 6, 1855. The first question to be
answered after the election of county officers was where to locate the county
seat, but for the first few years, the seat of government changed so much that
no one was quite sure of the official location. Until the first courthouse was
built four years later, court sessions were held in the homes of some of the
early residents. For 25 years (1855-1880), the county seat war went on and the
location if the seat of justice was tossed from one community to another.
Starting early in 1856 with Vernon Springs (where a sawmill had been built on
the Turkey River in 1853) and the county seat was subsequently located at Howard
Center (September 1856) and New Oregon. In 1858, to settle the controversy, a
courthouse was ordered to be built on a bluff known as Pikes Peak, near the
Turkey River, about halfway between Vernon Springs and New Oregon. Both of these
towns had good water power, causing early settlers to locate there.
The courthouse was constructed in February 1859 on Court House Hill (Pike's
Peak) with money raised by subscription by citizens of the two communities,
Vernon Springs and New Oregon. Built of basswood lumber, the building finally
rotted away and, by 1865, was unsafe for housing county records. The county
government was the relocated at Vernon Springs. Here, a small stone building,
owned by L.L. Halstead, was used to hold county records. In
January 1867, Cresco citizens offered a new building (constructed by the Howard
County Court House Association) to the county for use as a courthouse. So the
flourishing railroad town of Cresco (first called Shook's Grove) became the seat
of Howard County government, as directed by the board of supervisors. This
building was occupied by the county officers in July of 1867. However, the board
had exceeded its authority in making this decision to relocate, and the matter
was submitted to a vote on November 7, 1867. A majority (969 to 800) voted to
retain the old location at "the bluff" (Pike's Peak), although county business
was transacted in the new building at Cresco, where records were kept for safety
and convenience. This arrangement continued until the courthouse
at Cresco burned on December 1, 1876, destroying the building, the court
records, and some of the books and papers of other county offices. The fire was
discovered about midnight Thanksgiving night (November 30), when many people
were leaving a supper at Caward's Building and festivities being Held at Lyric
Hall and Price Hall. Flames were centered in the courtroom on the second floor
of the courthouse. Records from the offices of the treasurer, recorder, and
auditor were removed before the fire spread to the first floor of the building.
While cause of the fire was unknown, the careless habit of throwing lighted
cigar stumps on the floor probably caused the courthouse blaze, although some
attributed the fire to incendiarism. The property was insured for $3500. The
county suffered another loss, which was related to the fire according to rumors,
when the sum of $18,500.65 turned up missing from the county treasurer's safe.
Frank Kyte, who was the county treasurer from 1873 until his disappearance in
July 1877, was never captured. Previous to this defalcation, the treasurer's
office was broken into during the night of March 15, 1868 and $13,000 in money
and securities was stolen - the county's first financial loss by theft. A $2000
reward was offered by the county board of supervisors, and the famed Allan
Pinkerton detective agency was brought in to investigate the case, but no one
was ever apprehended for the crime. After the fire in 1876, the
city limits of Cresco were then extended to the south (through a legal maneuver)
to include the old courthouse at the "the bluff" (Pike's Peak), just two miles
away. When this was done, the board voted to move the courthouse location to the
newly selected courthouse square, and an attractive building was erected between
August 4, 1879 and January 1, 1880, the ending the 25 yearlong county seat
controversy. Until the new courthouse was ready for occupancy, county records
and county offices were located in various homes and buildings.
This 1880 courthouse is in the Italianate-Classic style. The red and buff
colored brick used in its construction was made in the old McMillen Brick Plant.
The courthouse association paid $5705.90 of the building cost, the county
furnished $1040, and the contractors (B. D. Everingham and J. L. Harlow) were
said to have lost $1825. The grounds were fenced with an ornamental railing of
iron, "artistically laid out". While the City of Cresco had given
the courthouse to Howard County for court and county purposes, the question of
title had been raised on several occasions and came to a head when people
outside of Cresco insisted that the county should not pay for improvements on
the property because they did not have clear title. So, in 1910, the city
council of Cresco voted unanimously to transfer all of the city's right and tile
to the courthouse property to Howard County. On June 16, 1910, the county board
of supervisors accepted the deed for the grounds. In 1930, repair
work was done on the courthouse, new iron work was installed in the steps, and
the basement entrance was repaired. In August 1938, a proposal to construct a
new two-story, fireproof courthouse was voted down after the old building had
been condemned An addition to the south side of the courthouse had been
condemned. An addition to the south side of the courthouse was made in 1951 at
the cost of $4500. It was designed by Joe E. Burgess. In 1955,
another proposal to build a new courthouse was voted down. The $400,000 bond
issue failed to pass by a vote of 1083 for and 1968 against. On November 3,
1964, voters gave approval to a $60,000 bond issue for an extension to the
courthouse by a vote of 2647 for and 1919 against. Two additions, one to the
north and one to the south of the front side of the original structure, provide
more vault storage space for county records. Other changes were made to the
courtroom and some of the offices, but the main structure is still much as it
was when completed in 1880. Information from the book titled
"The Counties and Courthouses of Iowa" by LeRoy G. Pratt Copyright 1977. |
