CHAPTER XXI.
GROVE TOWNSHIP.

GROVE CITY.

In 1856 Grove City was surveyed and platted by J. R. Kirk, Albert Wakefield, David A. Barnett, A. G. McQueen, A. P. T. Thayer, V. M. Conrad, J. P. Wheeler and E. W. Davenport. It was situated about three miles east of the present site of Atlantic, on a beautiful and level rise of the land, and bade fair to be a prosperous and growing place. A few small buildings were at once erected, in one of which A. T. Drake displayed a small stock of goods. Before the end of the year Mr. Kirk built a rather more pretentious structure which he opened as a hotel, and which he passed over to Mr. Drake in 1857. Mr. Barnett was the third proprietor, and finally, in 1869, it was removed to Atlantic, where it was known as the City Hotel.

Mary Curry, who taught the first school in the township in a log house on Mr. Kirk's farm, was also the pioneer teacher of Grove City, organizing a small class of scholars in the settlement during 1857.

In 1859 Rev. William Douthat, an aged Presbyterian preacher, attempted to build up a college at Grove City, but, although an educated, competent teacher, he appears to have mixed a rather too severe brand of orthodoxy with his educational work to be popular, and after two years of earnest and somewhat eccentric effort returned to his former home in Pennsylvania.

A postoffice was established at Grove City in 1857, but as there was already an office by that name it was christened Turkey Grove. Until its discontinuance in 1870, the office was in charge of Mrs. D. A. Barnett, William Curry, R. D. McGeehon and Mrs. Albert Wakefield.

During the twelve years that Grove City promised to become a thriving place, Drs. D. Findley, Morris Hoblit and G. S. Montgomery located there for practice, the last two remaining and being fairly prosperous until the railroad passed the city by, and the exodus commenced to Atlantic. In 1860 George Conrad established the first general store, and two years later R. D. McGeehon entered the field, the two having a monopoly of the trade as as there was any afloat. They both migrated to Atlantic, where they were also successful in the same line of business.

LOSES COUNTY SEAT FIGHT.

Grove City made two determined efforts to snatch the county seat from Lewis; but both failed. At the March term of the County Court, in 1857, R. D. McGeehon, A. G. McQueen and 112 others presented a petition to have the question of removal submitted to the voters of the county, but the remonstrance, signed by 164 citizens, effectually smothered it for the time being. In 1858 the supporters of Grove City obtained the signatures of more than half the voters of the county, which was all that was necessary to obtain an expression from the people; but they were defeated at the October election, and Lewis remained the county seat.

FALL OF GROVE CITY.

In 1868, when the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad was being built across the county it was the general impression that Grove City would be a city, and a good one. Believing this, quite a number of business houses were opened that year, and several profession men established themselves to be in readiness for the expected "boom." During the progress of work on the railroad, and before the line had passed the place, Grove City was certainly a lively village. But when the railroad cooly cut through one corner of the plat and then passed on forever to the new city of Atlantic, the residents of Grove City, new and old, understood that their case was hopeless, and the stampede resembled one to new and better "diggings" in a mining region. Buildings and people moved, almost en masse, to Atlantic, and within a decade there remained no business house, and few structures of any kind, upon the site of a once flourishing village. One of the last buildings to be torn down was a hotel which had been built by A. T. Drake. In 1880 it gave place to an apple orchard. In the early 'eighties there were no buildings on the former site of Grove City except a Methodist church and a school house, and the land has now returned to the farm.

"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pg. 224-226.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, July, 2018.