It appears that on the first ballot for location, Marshall county had four ; Story, three; Hardin, one ; and Polk three votes. On the second ballot, Story had six, and Polk four votes. Further action was had to the effect that the location would not bind the Board until the propositions for donations of lands, money and bonds should be made good, and the lands selected, conveyed at the prices agreed upon. The executive committee was also authorized to have lumber and stone purchased for the erection of a house and barn, to procure plans for the same, and plans for a college building, to have one hundred and sixty acres of prairie broken, and to arrange for fencing the same the following year. In short, it was the understanding that there should be at least twenty thousand dollars expended in the purchase and improvement of the farm. At that time an act had been passed through the lower House of Congress granting an endowment of lands for Agricultural Colleges, and nations had obtained that an experimental farm would greatly aid the common farmer in learning the nature of soils, and how to till them; and the advantages of a college at which the farmer's son or daughter could pay his or her way by their own labor was fully appreciated. But the ideas that such stately buildings as now adorn the farm, would soon appear; or that before the centennial year should have passed one hundred graduates, one-third being ladies, would have left these halls of learning; or that more than twelve hundred different pupils would by the same time have received instruction therein; or that mainly through the impetus thus given to that part of the county an interest would be fostered that would array itself against the proper developement of other positions of the country, were never entertained for a moment by those who so earnestly and cheerfully strove to advance its struggling fortunes.
As an evidence of the present capacity and popularity of the college it is sufficient to mention that it enrolled the names of 277 pupils in 1875; that its corps of professors and teachers number sixteen all paid by the endowment, and furnishing free tuition; that its present income from the land-endowment is but little less than $ 40,000, and will eventually exceed that amount; and that in place or the meagre $20,000, which at first it was expected would be expended, there have been paid out, mostly from the State Treasury nearly a half million of dollars.
Take it all in all, when it is remembered that Story was then almost a frontier county; that her territory was contemptuously styled a frog-pond; that her people were poor and the times were those of great depression, and that the Board was strongly disposed to be influenced by the amount of donations promised, the securing of the location was a great triumph. Had the subsequent action of Congress been anticipated it would doubtless have gone to a more wealthy county.
The courts and attorneys of Story County in early times were as follows : Incident to the settlement of the county and apper-