Emmetsburg Moves: Iowa Time Machine September 2, 1874

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On September 2, 1874, Emmetsburg did something few towns can claim: it began to pick itself up and move. The first business left “Old Town” for a freshly platted site near the railroad, launching a relocation that remade the county’s commercial and political geography.

The town’s roots reached back to the Irish migration that helped settle northwestern Iowa in the 1850s. Iowa entered the Union in 1846, and Palo Alto County was established in January 1851. In 1856, Irish immigrant families including the Nolans, Nearys, Mahans, Laughlins, Downeys, Sylvesters, Jackmans, Hickeys, and Crowleys settled near the Des Moines River in what became a frontier Irish colony near present-day Emmetsburg. A local winter count for 1856–57 recorded 42 people at the Irish Colony, alongside 14 nearby Native people and three professional trappers.

In 1858, Irish land speculators proposed a town near Medium Lake, now called Five Island Lake, and chose the name Emmetsburg to honor Robert Emmet, the Irish nationalist executed by British authorities in 1803. The community that moved in 1874 had already survived false starts, isolation, and the hazards of prairie settlement. County leaders had designated Paoli as the county seat in 1859, but that place soon declined. Around 1865, Martin Coonan carried bricks from Paoli’s abandoned courthouse to the growing settlement called Old Town, where he built a two-story tavern, obtained the post office, and posted a sign pointing travelers toward “Emmetsburg.”

In June 1874, company representatives met Old Town’s businesspeople and promised choice lots in a new townsite if they relocated. The first business moved on September 2. Historical accounts identify it as the law office of Col. T. W. Harrison, moved shortly after the first building was erected at the new site on August 31. The transfer gathered momentum through the fall, and Old Town gradually disappeared as the rail-connected Emmetsburg emerged. #Iowa #OTD #History #Geography #Irish