Historic Black Hawk County

Historic Black Hawk County. . , Black Hawk County's agricultural economy is based on the rich land, seventy-nine per cent of which is under cultivation. Through the county flow the Cedar and Wapsipinicon rivers. The county was named for a Sac Indian leader. Several Indian tribes, including the Sac, Mesquakie (Fox), and Winnebago hunted and held councils in the area. Especially popular was Turkey Foot Forks where the confluence of the Cedar, the West Fork, and the Shell Rock resembles a turkey foot. Government explorers, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, and Captain Nathan Boone, a son of the noted Kentucky pioneer, traveled through this area in the early days of American ownership. The first permanent settlers came to the county in 1845, attracted by the fertile prairie with nearby streams and woodlands. They located at Sturgis Falls, a mill site later known as Cedar Falls, at Turkey Foot Forks in the northwestern part of the county, and at Prairie Rapids Crossing, later named Waterloo. , Black Hawk County is a center for agriculturally related industries, primarily farm machinery manufacture and meat packing. In 1910, the National Dairy Cattle Congress opened in Waterloo and became an extensive, annual exposition of agricultural progress, farm machinery, and entertainment. A state normal school was established in 1876 at Cedar Falls, in a building formerly used as a Civil War soldiers' orphans' home. Passing through several name changes, it expanded to become the University of Northern Iowa. Peter Melendy, a founder, who came to Cedar Falls in 1859, is among the dedicated persons who have led UNI to its position of eminence in American education. Many notable people have come from Black Hawk County, including: Lou Henry Hoover, President of the Girl Scouts of America and wife of the 31st President of the U.S.; Carl L. Becker, distinguished historian of the American Revolution; Horace Boies, two-term Governor of Iowa; Bess Streeter Aldrich, author; and William Galloway, manufacturer of farm machinery in the early 1900s.