Excerpt from History of Winneshiek and Allamakee Counties, Iowa Early in the Spring of 1542, Ferdinand Desoto discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River at the mouth of the Washita. After the sudden death of Desoto, in May, of the same year, his followers built a small vessel, and in J uly, 1543, descended the great river to the Gulf of Mexico. 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.

The history of the settlement of the west can in many aspects be attributed to the coming of a railroad. To the first settlers the railroads provided the opportunities to link up with markets across the nation without having to travel far from their farms. The lines brought hope and change, but also brought crime and corruption. The story of almost every town west of the Mississippi can in some way be linked to the story of the railroad that serviced the area. These towns grew over the years in size and economic wealth as the amounts of trade and transport transformed the line into a funnel for economic progress. Though the railroads would eventually be challenged by trucking companies and personal automobiles, the business the railroads had help establish lead the community into the wealth they have today. In the northern Iowa county of Winneshiek, each town holds the perfect example of railroad successes and failures. Each town holds their own heritage, which can uniquely be associated with many other towns across the west. The heritage left by the railroads can be directly linked to the heritage of the western United States. To look at the history of us, we need to look into the founding of the railroads.