Belleville Beginnings

Belleville Beginnings. . , Republic County was formally organized on September 7, 1868. The Belleville Townsite Company organized one year later and selected a site centered in the new county. A. B. Tutton moved to name the town in honor of his wife, Arabella. Although Belleville won the election to select a permanent county seat, it was only a prospective town until the first building was completed near the northeast corner of 19th and M Streets in 1870. That log house, chinked with rock, daubed with mortar, and covered with cottonwood shingles, was used for the first store, post office, and school as well as church services., Belleville's future was assured in 1872 when county commissioners accepted a donation of town lots and matched that with $1,000 appropriated for the erection of a courthouse on the public square. By 1873 the new town had become a gateway to the homestead country of the central Great Plains. Completed in 1938, the present courthouse is the third on the site. The courthouse square is valuable as a civic center and symbolizes the unifying factors in community life., Fire and water have been contrasting themes in Belleville's history. In the 1870s, businesses around the square were housed in small wood-frame buildings. Later, these were replaced by more substantial brick buildings. The first brick building, a bank, was erected in 1882. After the two-story brick Hotel Republic was constructed in 1886 at the corner of 17th and M, it became a local landmark. However, a major fire in 1884 destroyed 200 feet of wood frame buildings on the west side of the square., Other buildings on the north side of the square were destroyed by a 1888 fire. Fires in 1891 and 1919 destroyed buildings on the south side of the square. Major fires destroyed Powell's Opera House Block in 1934 and the 1886 courthouse in 1938., As Belleville grew, water supply was a continuing problem. By 1875 there were wells at each corner of the square and a water storage tower in the southwest corner was constructed in 1881. During the 1890 drought, all the city wells ran dry. In 1895 the Union Pacific Company dug a large well that the city purchased in 1900. Additional wells only tapped salty water. Belleville leaders finally secured a dependable supply in 1929 with water piped to the city from deep wells eleven miles to the north just over the Nebraska border. To promote the new water supply, the B and J Oil Company advertised that their service included "the best water in the world.”, When publisher A. Q. Miller recalled the progress he had witnessed since 1904, he boasted in 1937 that Belleville had the reputation of standing at the top of the list in towns of its class in modern store fronts. The paved streets, modern sewer system, excellent lighting system, store fronts and substantial business buildings that Miller described were the culmination of Belleville’s historic downtown development.