What was iowa named after

Edwars as a tribute to Indian leader Chief Black Hawk. Two Iowa promoters from Burlington are believed to have popularized the name. A more popular and recent but also only semi-official nickname is the Corn State , which has appeared on the state license plates. Fever and ague, which consisted of alternating fevers and chills, was a constant complaint. Later generations would learn that fever and ague was a form of malaria, but pioneers thought that it was caused by gas emitted from the newly turned sod.

Moreover, pioneers had few ways to relieve even common colds or toothaches. Early life on the Iowa prairie was sometimes made more difficult by the death of family members.

Some pioneer women wrote of the heartache caused by the death of a child. One women, Kitturah Belknap, had lost one baby to lung fever. When a second child died, she confided in her diary: "I have had to pass thru another season of sorrow. Death has again entered our home. This time it claimed our dear little John for its victim. It was hard for me to give him up but dropsy on the brain ended its work in four short days We are left again with one baby and I feel that my health is giving way.

These early settlers soon discovered that prairie land, although requiring some adjustments, was some of the richest land to be found anywhere in the world.

Moreover, by the late s, most of the state had been settled and the isolation and loneliness associated with pioneer living had quickly vanished. Transportation: Railroad Fever As thousands of settlers poured into Iowa in the mids, all shared a common concern for the development of adequate transportation.

The earliest settlers shipped their agricultural goods down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, but by the s, Iowans had caught the nation's railroad fever. The nation's first railroad had been built near Baltimore in , and by , Chicago was served by almost a dozen lines. Iowans, like other Midwesterners, were anxious to start railroad building in their state.

In the early s, city officials in the river communities of Dubuque, Clinton, Davenport, and Burlington began to organize local railroad companies. City officials knew that railroads building west from Chicago would soon reach the Mississippi River opposite the four Iowa cities.

With the s, railroad planning took place which eventually resulted in the development of the Illinois Central, the Chicago and North Western, reaching Council Bluffs in Council Bluffs had been designated as the eastern terminus for the Union Pacific, the railroad that would eventually extend across the western half of the nation and along with the Central Pacific, provide the nation's first transcontinental railroad.

A short time later a fifth railroad, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific, also completed its line across the state. The completion of five railroads across Iowa brought major economic changes. Of primary importance, Iowans could travel every month of the year. During the latter ninetieth and early twentieth centuries, even small Iowa towns had six passenger trains a day. Steamboats and stagecoaches had previously provided transportation, but both were highly dependent on the weather, and steam boats could not travel at all once the rivers had frozen over.

Railroads also provided year-round transportation for Iowa's farmers. With Chicago's pre-eminence as a railroad center, the corn, wheat, beef, and pork raised by Iowa's farmers could be shipped through Chicago, across the nation to eastern seaports, and from there, anywhere in the world. Railroads also brought major changes in Iowa's industrial sector. Before , Iowa contained some manufacturing firms in the eastern portion of the state, particularly all made possible by year-around railroad transportation.

Many of the new industries were related to agriculture. In time, this firm took the name Quaker Oats. Meat packing plants also appeared in the s in different parts of the state: Sinclair Meat Packing opened in Cedar Rapids and John Morrell and Company set up operations in Ottumwa. Education and Religion As Iowa's population and economy continued to grow, education and religious institutions also began to take shape.

Americans had long considered education important and Iowans did not deviate from that belief. Early in any neighborhood, residents began to organize schools. The first step was to set up township elementary schools, aided financially by the sale or lease of section 16 in each of the state's many townships.

The first high school was established in the s, but in general, high schools did not become widespread until after Private and public colleges also soon appeared. By , the Congregationalists had established Grinnell College. The Catholics and Methodists were most visible in private higher education, however.

The establishment of private colleges coincided with the establishment of state educational institutions. In the mids, state officials organized three state institutions of higher learning, each with a different mission.

The University of Iowa, established in , was to provide classical and professional education for Iowa's young people; Iowa State College of Science and Technology now Iowa State University , established in ; was to offer agricultural and technical training.

Iowa State Teachers' College now University of Northern Iowa , founded in was to train teachers for the state's public schools. Iowans were also quick to organize churches. Beginning in the s, the Methodist Church sent out circuit riders to travel throughout the settled portion of the state.

Each circuit rider typically had a two-week circuit in which he visited individual families and conducted sermons for local Methodist congregations. Because the circuit riders' sermons tended to be emotional and simply stated, Iowa's frontiers-people could readily identify with them. The Methodists profited greatly from their "floating ministry," attracting hundreds of converts in Iowa's early years.

As more settled communities appeared, the Methodist Church assigned ministers to these stationary charges. Catholics also moved into Iowa soon after white settlement began. Dubuque served as the center for Iowa Catholicism as Catholics established their first diocese in that city. Bishop Loras helped establish Catholic churches in the area and worked hard to attract priests and nuns from foreign countries. After the Civil War, more and more of that group tended to be native-born.

Congregationalists were the third group to play an important role in Iowa before the Civil War. The first group of Congregationalist ministers here were known as the Iowa Band.

This was a group of 11 ministers, all trained at Andover Theological Seminary, who agreed to carry the gospel into a frontier region. The group arrived in , and each minister selected a different town in which to establish a congregation. The Iowa Band's motto was "each a church; all a college. Later church officials move the college to Grinnell and changed its name to Grinnell College. The letters and journal of William Salter, a member of the Iowa Band, depict the commitment and philosophy of this small group.

At one point, Salter wrote the following to his fiancee back East: "I shall aim to show that the West will be just what others make it, and that they which work the hardest and do the most for it shall have it. Prayer and pain will save the West and the Country is worth it Quakers established meeting houses in the communities of West Branch, Springdale, and Salem.

Presbyterians were also well represented in Iowa communities. Baptists often followed the practice of hiring local farmers to preach on Sunday mornings. And as early as the s, Mennonite Churches began to appear in eastern Iowa. The work of the different denominations meant that during the first three decades of settlement, Iowans had quickly established their basic religious institutions.

The Civil War By , Iowa had achieved statehood December 28, , and the state continued to attract many settlers, both native and foreign-born. Only the extreme northwestern part of the state remained a frontier area. But after almost 30 years of peaceful development, Iowans found their lives greatly altered with the outbreak of the Civil War in While Iowans had no battles fought on their soil, the state paid dearly through the contributions of its fighting men.

Iowa males responded enthusiastically to the call for Union volunteers and more than 75, Iowa men served with distinction in campaigns fought in the East and in the South. Of that number, 13, died in the war, many of disease rather than from battle wounds. Some men died in the Confederate prison camps, particularly Andersonville, Georgia. A total of 8, Iowa men were wounded.

Many Iowans served with distinction in the Union Army. The mayor put on blindfold, faced a map and placed his finger on Jamaica, and so the town name was born. The town was named Pella because the townspeople were seeking religious freedom, much like the people of Perea. Elkader was named after the Algerian leader Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri. In , the founders decided to name it for the young Algerian who was leading his people in resisting the French colonial takeover of Algeria.

The story goes that the town got its name because the townspeople, who had relocated from another settlement, were unhappy that the railroad had not laid tracks by their old settlement. So because of that, the people called themselves 'defiers' and the town Defiance. Originally the town was called Officialredrydercarbineactiontwohundredshotrangemodelairrifle, but the town was asked by the Post Office to come up with something a little shorter, hence the name "Beebeetown.

After their first choice of town names was rejected, the townspeople successfully got the town named "What Cheer," which is an old slang term similar to today's "What's up. With an abundance of Montana is the fourth largest U. Kansas, situated on the American Great Plains, became the 34th state on January 29, Its path to statehood was long and bloody: After the Kansas-Nebraska Act of opened the two territories to settlement and allowed the new settlers to determine whether the states would Except for Hawaii, Indiana Louisiana sits above the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River, bordered by Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east and Texas to the west.

Originally colonized by the French during the 18th century, it became U. Granted statehood in , Washington was named in honor of George Washington; it is the only U.