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Before the Europeans came, the valley of the Cedar River was almost
completely covered in dense timber. Yet at a point about seven miles below
the falls of the Cedar, unwooded prairie grasses covered both banks of the
river for a stretch of about a mile. The river itself at that point fell
in a swift rapids. Underneath the rapids, the riverbed was solid rock.
When the region was opened to white inhabitants, after the Sac and Fox
Indians lost their hold on it following the Black Hawk War of 1832, the
falls were an attraction to entrepreneurs who saw their potential for
water power. One such, William Sturgis, made plans for a dam and lent his
name to the early gathering of cabins.
The combination of open space and a solid river bottom at the rapids made
a safe and, hence, a popular crossing for the Indians and for the early
white visitors. The site inevitably became a settlement, initially named
Prairie Rapids by first settlers George and Mary Hanna. Thus Sturgis Falls
and Prairie Rapids, later to be renamed Cedar Falls and Waterloo, became
in 1845 the first settlements in Black Hawk County, and between them at
the end of the year they boasted the county’s entire white population of
thirteen pioneers.
Prior to the establishment of permanent homes, Black Hawk County, first
created in 1843 and named for the Sac war leader who lost the war that
bears his name (and who never set foot in the area named for him), had
been under the administration of Delaware County. Responding to the
gradual western trend of white expansion, Benton County officials took
over in 1845, the year before Iowa statehood, followed by Buchanan County
in 1851. By act of the Iowa legislature, Black Hawk County was allowed to
organize its own government and elect officers in 1853. At the same time,
the counties of Bremer, Grundy, and Butler were administratively attached
to Black Hawk County. The first election of county officials was held on
August 17.
The legislature also called for a commission to locate the county seat in
the same year. Sturgis Falls, with its thriving mills, was the leader in
commerce at the time and got the nod. Waterloo boosters, unwilling to
acquiesce, convinced the legislature to call for an election and by a vote
of 388 to 260, the more centrally-located Waterloo became the county seat
in 1855. It was already vying with Cedar Falls in the milling industry, a
dam having been constructed in 1854, the year the city was platted.
Many eastern Iowa settlements moved swiftly from frontier outposts to
civilized cities in the beginning of the last half of the nineteenth
century. Surrounded by some of the richest farmland to be found anywhere
on the globe, the cities of Black Hawk County became important centers for
the agricultural community. Despite a brief period of high water, which
allowed the steamboat Black Hawk to make twenty-four round trips between
Cedar Rapids and Waterloo in 1859, the Cedar River was not destined to
provide a transportation advantage. However, the railroads arrived in
1861, precipitating another rivalry between the neighbors on the Cedar.
When, in 1870, the Illinois Central Railroad chose Waterloo over Cedar
Falls as the site of its repair shop, Waterloo was set in its path to
become a major industrial center by the turn of the century.
Cedar Falls developers were chagrined by Waterloo’s ascendancy in
commerce, but their city started to form it's distinct personality in 1876
with the establishment of the Iowa State Normal School, a teacher’s
college that opened with twenty-seven students in a former orphanage and
quickly grew. As it took on the adornments of a college town, Cedar Falls
gained the nickname of “The Lawn City”, in sharp contrast with
Waterloo which by the early 1900s was known as “The Factory City”.
From the earliest days, another rivalry existed in the county, that of
East and West Waterloo. Probably, the Indians argued about which side of
the river was better before the white settlers ever arrived, as both sides
had well established paths, the route on the east side leading to present
day Marion and the one on the west to Iowa City. Early residents of
Waterloo clashed on the location of the courthouse. (Disgruntled Cedar
Falls citizens threw the decisive votes to the East Side to avenge
themselves on the West Side businessmen who finagled the county seat
referendum out of the legislature in 1855). Separate school districts were
established in 1866, merging only in 1942.
Probably the most famous cross-river spat came when philanthropist Andrew
Carnegie began in 1898 his campaign to subsidize the building of public
libraries. Of the 1,679 libraries built by the program’s end in 1919,
101 were built in Iowa, two in Waterloo. A remarkably patient Carnegie
foundation negotiated with implacable East and West Side factions from
1902 to 1904. Instead of the original $30,000 grant, $40,000 was offered
to build two libraries, one on each side of the river or one library sited
in the middle of the river. (Mayor P.J. Martin had suggested building one
on the not-yet-completed Fourth Street Bridge.) Two small, but tasteful,
buildings were finally erected and served their respective patrons until
1981 when the library moved into the former post office, which moved from
the West Side to a new location on the East Side.
While such quarrels may have wasted energy best expended elsewhere, the
competition was healthy in other respects. When one side attracted a new
business or platted a new housing addition, the other side frequently
followed suit with alacrity. The result is that Waterloo enjoyed startling
growth around the turn of the twentieth century. The city’s population
grew from 6,674 in 1890 to 36,230 in 1920. Between 1881 and 1914, the
number of factories increased from 28 to 144.
Chief among these was John Deere and Company, which in 1918 bought out the
Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company, in order to add the popular Waterloo Boy
tractor to its other successful farm implement lines. The tractor works
grew expansively along the Cedar’s bank northwest of downtown (the river
doesn’t really run north and south, but rather bisects the county from
its northwest corner to its southeast) and eventually branched out to an
engine works and a new tractor works at other sites in the county.
The industrial growth in the early part of the century brought waves of
immigrants hungry for work. Many of these were Croatians and other eastern
Europeans and African-Americans from the deep South. This gave Black Hawk
County a diversity of population unusual for mostly homogenous Iowa. A
large contingent of Danes was drawn to Cedar Falls where a Danish-language
newspaper survived until 1932.
Another major employer was the Rath Packing Plant, one of the largest meat
packers in the nation in its time. Rath and Deere workers epitomized the
efforts of labor leaders to organize unions in the area in the 1930s and
40s. Both labor forces were unionized in separate efforts in 1942.
Waterloo has been known as a strong “union town” ever since.
The prominence of agriculture in the region, which spawned such
farm-related industries as John Deere and Rath, also led to an annual
event that put Waterloo on the map for farmers from around the country.
The Dairy Cattle Congress settled permanently in Waterloo in 1912 and, as
the National Dairy Cattle Congress, became one of the nation’s premier
livestock shows.
Black Hawk County has been the home or birthplace of many notable
citizens. Among them are historian Carl Becker, former First Lady Lou
Henry Hoover, the five Sullivan brothers who perished together when their
ship was sunk in the Second World War and Olympic gold medal winner and
longtime Iowa wrestling coach Dan Gable. Congressmen H.R. Gross and David
Nagle called the county home, as did Representative Charles E. Pickett who
was instrumental in the establishment of the Lincoln Memorial.
Black Hawk County lost population for the first time in its history
between the 1980 and 1990 censuses. This was a time when the farm economy
was wracked by low market prices and painful farm foreclosures. These and
other factors led to major changes in the county’s major employers. John
Deere drastically cut its workforce and Rath closed in 1985, to be
succeeded a few years later by meatpacking giant IBP. With its relatively
low wages, IBP was compelled to recruit workers from far afield, causing a
new wave of immigration into the area, largely from Latin America and
war-torn Bosnia. Much like nearly a century earlier, immigrants came
searching for the American dream in Waterloo, Iowa. Recent commercial and
industrial growth has the region again in an upswing, and the population
grew 3.4% between 1990 and 2000 to 128,012.
Meanwhile, in Cedar Falls the normal school with twenty-seven students had
grown into the University of Northern Iowa with an enrollment of over
13,000. While still a respected teacher’s college, it is also well-known
for other programs including a highly regarded school of business. UNI has
a wide variety of graduate programs and offers doctorates in education and
industrial technology.
Other communities have grown up in Black Hawk County and offer their own
contributions. The other incorporated cities in the county are Dunkerton,
Elk Run Heights, Evansdale, Gilbertville, Hudson, La Porte City, Raymond,
and portions of Janesville and Jesup. -from
the Official Website of Black Hawk County |
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