THREE QUARTERS of a CENTURY of PROGRESS
1848-1923
A Brief Pictorial and Commercial History
of Sioux City, Iowa
published 1923
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Sioux City at a Glance
Sioux City is the metropolis of the northwest where the farmer, the rancher and the captain of industry join hands to make a market for the world's greatest agricultural region. The city has a population of 85,000, over 96 per cent of whom are white. The foreign element, composed for the most part of Scandinavians and British subjects, form a stable class of citizens—hard working and thrift. Perhaps no other city the size of Sioux City has so few undesirables. The industrial section of the city lays along the north shore of the Missouri river and extends orthward along the valleys of the Floyd river and Perry creek. The business section is at the base of this U-shaped valley. Spreading out in fan formation to the north, east and west is the beautiful residence part of the city, divided into three major sections by these valleys. The average elevation of Sioux City above sea level is 1,158 feet. The mean annual temperature over a period of thirty years is 48 degrees. Winters are cold and snappy, but not wet and slushy as it is a little farther south. The summers get hot, but the nights usually bring cool breezes, making sleep a pleasure. Sioux City is large enough to enjoy all the advantages of a big city and yet small enough to enjoy the congenial community spirit.
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Three Quarters of a Century of Progress in Sioux City
From a trading post of seventy-five years ago, Sioux
City has become an
industrial center that belongs not to one state or one county but to
the
greatest agricultural territory that the American continent holds.
A COMPLETE history of Sioux City would take us back thousands of years ago, before man set foot on this continent. It was then that nature in all her glory laid the foundation for the city that was to be the industrial metropolis of he great Northwest. Rich, fertile soil placed conveniently near the great Missouri river in a natural valley caused by the many streams flowing into this river made an ideal spot on which to lay a city that was to serve so large and important an agricultural territory. This territory, coupled with the progress of the early settlers of Sioux City, has made the city what it is today.
The first authentick account we have of white man's appearance on the ground of what is now Sioux City is that of the famous exploring expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804. This party left St. Louis and made their way up the Missouri river, arriving near here in the summer of 1804. On August 20th of that year one of the members of the party, Sergeant Charles Floyd, died and was buried on a high bluff now in the south part of Sioux City. Later a beautiful stone monument was erected to his memory by the citizens of the city and by the government. This straight shaft of white stone extending upward towards the sky calls to the memory of the people the first appearance of white man in this country.
The Red man roamed at will and hunted the wild buffaloes on the plains and in the valleys of the Missouri and Sioux. He was unmolested and little dreamed that his paths were to be turned into streets and paved with materials yet unknown to him. The spot where the city was later to be placed was a favorite spot for the Indians to camp. It afforded fuel and fresh water as well as protection from the cold winds of the plains. The campsites have become giant factories, jobbing
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houses and office buildings; the Indian ponies have given way to the engines and the automobiles. This change has come within the lifetime of some of the men now in business in Siux City.
In the summer of 1848, three-quarters of a century ago, a single pioneer, Wiliam Thompson, imbued with the spirit of adventure that built America, settled on Floyd's Bluff. This bluff was named for Sergeant Floyd, who gave his life for the cause of discovery nearly a half century before. So far as is known this was the first settlement of Sioux City. Thompson laid out a town and called it Thompsonville. In 1849, Theophile Brughier, a French Canadian, settled at the mouth of the Big Sioux river several miles from the Thompson settlement. These two points are now on opposite sides of Sioux City. Tradilng with the Indians was the lonly business at that time. Brughier had been in the employ of the American Fur Company, but leaving them and joining the Yankton Sioux Indians he married the daughter of their celebrated chief, War Eagle.
This great Indian chief, War Eagle, had been the controlling power in this immediate territory and it was iwth much grief to the early white settlers that he died in 1851. HIs bones were buried on a high hill at the western edge of the City. A marker has been placed on his grave which will be replaced at some later date with a monument suitable to the memory of so great a character in the life of the people before the city was established. It seems a strange coincidence of fate that on the southeastern edge of Sioux City stands the monument
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