Fur Trade in Iowa, 1818 to 1824 - George Davenport, Russell Farnham, American Fur Company

 

George Davenport

In the early 1800s, the fur trade exploded across the Iowa country. Rivers became highways. Canoes, keelboats, and trading boats moved along the Mississippi.

 

Furs meant money. Beaver. Otter. Muskrat. Deer hides. Lead from the Dubuque mines. Everything got packed onto boats and shipped south to St. Louis.

 

George Davenport was one of the biggest traders in the region. He built trading posts across eastern Iowa and traveled from camp to camp, buying furs from Native hunters. Sometimes on horseback. Sometimes by canoe. Sometimes on foot. It just depended on the season.

 

Russell Farnham worked the region for John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. Astor’s company was growing fast by the 1820s. Bigger than almost everyone else. The company pushed into the Upper Mississippi Valley and slowly crushed smaller traders.

 

The Sac, Fox, Sioux, Winnebago, and Ioway tribes were all part of the trade. Hunting grounds mattered. Trade routes mattered. Wars between tribes could wreck business fast.

 

Government officials tried to control trade with licenses and laws, but it didn’t work very well. Whiskey smuggling was everywhere. Traders ignored the rules when money was involved.

Building And Abandonment of Fort Madison

 

Fort Madison (from an old print)

Fort Madison was doomed before the first log hit the ground.

 

The Americans came in 1808. Boats sliding up the Mississippi. Soldiers carrying axes, muskets, and orders from Washington. Build a fort. Hold the frontier. Control the river.

 

The problem was that the fort sat deep inside Sac and Fox territory. American officers called it a trading post. Black Hawk and his followers saw an invasion.

 

The tension never let up. Warriors watched from the trees. Soldiers watched from the walls. Every sound made men reach for their muskets.

 

Then the attacks came.

 

Gunfire from the hills. Fire arrows across the night sky. Burning chunks of wood roasted the rooftops inside the fort. Soldiers filled their muskets with water, using them like syringes to douse the flames.

 

Realizing there was no way to save the fort, the soldiers planned their escape.

 

They dug a trench from the fort to the river. Then crawled through the dirt as the fort burned. At the river, they climbed into boats and disappeared into the darkness.

 

By morning, Fort Madison was gone.

 

The passage below was published in the Iowa Journal of History and Politics in April 1914, as part of “Forts in the Iowa Country” by Jacob van der Zee.

Official American And British Accounts Of The Battle Of Credit Island

 

Major Zachary Taylor

I’ve included several accounts of the Battle of Credit Island on this site. The following accounts were written by—Major Zachary Taylor and Lieutenant Duncan Graham (British Army).

 

The info is reprinted from Mersey, William A.. “Credit Island, 1814-1914.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. January 1915. P. 359-368.

 

American Expedition to Wipe Out Saukenuk

 

There was nothing to hinder Indian depredations in the Upper Mississippi Valley. St. Louis was the farthest northern and western point where an American Army was located. It was decided that the Indian Village at Rock River (The Sac near its mouth and the Fox on the west side of the Mississippi opposite the lower end of Rock Island) should be destroyed. Major Zachary Taylor, with a detachment of three hundred and thirty-four men in eight large fortified keel boats, left Cap Au Gris on the 23rd of August, and on the evening of September 5th, reached Rock River. On his arrival, Indians in large number made their appearance. After they had passed the mouth of Rock River, the wind began to blow a hurricane, and Taylor’s boats were blown toward the small island above Credit Island, where about four o’clock a landing was made.

Zachary Taylor’s Worst Day? The Chaotic Battle of Credit Island

 

Zachary Taylor

The upper Mississippi River was a dangerous place to be wearing an American uniform in the fall of 1814.

The British controlled Prairie du Chien. Sauk and Fox warriors controlled the area around the Rock River. American settlements farther south lived with constant rumors of raids, ambushes, and attacks. St. Louis was about as far north as American power reached. Beyond that, things got shaky fast.

So, the American Army hit back.

Major Zachary Taylor loaded 334 men into eight fortified keelboats and pushed north up the Mississippi in late August 1814. The mission was simple enough on paper: move toward Rock River, destroy the Sauk and Fox villages, burn corn supplies, and remind everybody who controlled the river.

The farther north Taylor went, the more warriors appeared along the shoreline. Canoes slipped back and forth across the river, and men watched from the trees.

Taylor noticed horses near the shore and smelled trouble, saying they were “doubtless placed” there to lure American troops into landing parties. He wasn’t wrong. The Sauk and Fox knew where boats could land, where sandbars sat hidden under the water, and where a man could disappear into the willows, never to be seen again.

Murder At The Roosevelt Hotel

 

Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids

Byron Hattman, a 29-year-old aerospace engineer with Emerson Electric, was murdered in room 729 of the Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids on December 14, 1948. The crime scene showed evidence of a violent struggle, with blood splattered on all four walls and knife marks etched into the plaster. Hattman was found face down on the floor, with a stab wound in his lower chest and several gashes on his head, face, and hands.

A maid discovered the body shortly after 7 a.m. the next morning. Detectives noted the door was locked from the outside, but Hattman’s key was found under the bed. The locked door seemed puzzling until a bellhop explained keys from nearby rooms could open others; for instance, the key for room 725 could unlock room 729.

As investigators dug into Hattman’s life, they uncovered several oddities. His landlord, Alvin Steinke, mentioned Hattman had recently been the victim of several “annoyances,” including someone placing a stud-filled plank in front of his car just a week earlier. And his personal life had taken a hit. Hattman, once an active dater, had become more withdrawn in recent months, dating once a month, if that.

Adding to the mystery was a peculiar chicken sculpture found in the trunk of Hattman’s car—two chicken bones attached to a cloth with the words “Lest you forget” underneath. Coworkers Paul Deam and Fred Gaez explained a woman Hattman dated gave him the bones as a playful reminder of a picnic where they enjoyed fried chicken together. That seemed strange and stalkerish.

Tom Harkin: The Iowa Senator Who Quietly Changed America

 

Tom Harkin when he was in the House of Representatives

If you’ve followed Iowa politics for any stretch of time, you’ve heard of Tom Harkin.

 

He wasn’t flashy. Didn’t follow headlines. More like… he was just there.

 

You’d hear his name come up—farm bill, labor fight, disability rights—and think, yeah, that tracks. That’s a Harkin thing.

 

Harkin was born in 1939 in Cumming, Iowa. His dad was a coal miner. His mom took whatever jobs she could get. They got by. That was the deal.

 

He went to Iowa State University. Studied government. Then he joined the Navy and became a pilot. That gave him an edge. He wasn’t intimidated by people just because they had titles or nicer suits.

 

After the Navy, he landed in Washington, working for congressional representative Neal Smith. That’s where things started to click—and also where things began to bother him.

 

He saw how slowly everything moved. How easy it was for something important to just… stall out. Get buried. Forgotten.

 

So he ran for office and won a seat in the House.

Before Walmart And The Internet We Had The Sears And Montgomery Ward Christmas Wish Books

 

Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog 1967

The first actual sign of Christmas wasn’t snow or  lights. It wasn’t even the tree. It was the sound of something heavy hitting the kitchen table.

 

You knew that sound.

 

You came running from the living room or outside. From wherever you were. Because if you didn’t grab it first, your brother or sister would.

 

The Christmas Wish Book had arrived.

 

Sears. Montgomery Ward. Sometimes both, if the timing lined up just right. And when they showed up, the entire house changed.

 

Christmas had officially started.

 

You didn’t ease into those catalogs. You dove in headfirst. Spread it out. Flip fast at first, almost frantic, like you were afraid it might disappear. Then slow it down. Because now you were looking. Really looking.

 

Page by page, the world opened up.