History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Sac
SAC COUNTY was created in 1851 and named for the Sac Indians. It lies in the fourth tier south of Minnesota and in the third tier east of the Missouri River, is twenty-four miles square and embraces five hundred seventy-six square miles. The county is watered by branches of the Boyer and Raccoon rivers flowing in a southerly direction through the county which is on the divide between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers; the waters of the Raccoon flow into the former and the Boyer into the Missouri.
The first settler in the county was Otho Williams who, in 1854, located at Big Grove in the southeast corner on the North Raccoon River, where he cleared a farm in the woods while thousands of acres of fertile prairie ready for the breaking plow surrounded the grove on all sides. Soon after F. M. Corey, Leonard Austin, Joseph Austin, W. F. Lagourge and Seymour Wagoner settled in various parts of the county. Mr. Wagoner became major of a cavalry regiment during the War of the Rebellion and was killed while gallantly leading his command in battle. On the 4th of July, 1855, a town was laid out on the banks of the Raccoon River for the county-seat and named Sac City. Previous to 1856 Sac had been attached to Greene County for judicial, election and revenue purposes.
The first election was held April 7, 1856, at the house of Eugene Criss, at which the following officials were chosen: Samuel Watts, judge; Francis Ayers, clerk; F. M. Corey, recorder and treasurer; W. F. Lagourge, sheriff, and H. C. Crawford, prosecuting attorney. The first term of the District Court was held at Sac City by Judge C. J. McFarland in June, 1857.
For many years the settlers were obliged to go to Fort Dodge, a distance of fifty miles, for goods, groceries and mail. The first house at Sac City was built by Eugene Criss for a hotel, which was for many years the station for the semi-weekly stage line running between Cedar Falls and Sioux City. In 1863 Grant City was laid out in the southern part of the county on the Raccoon River. The first newspaper was the Sac Sun, established in July, 1871, by J. N. Miller of Sac City. Odebolt, in the western part of the county, was laid out by the Blair Land Company in 1877 on a branch of the Northwestern Railroad. The town of Wall Lake was platted by the Blair Company in 1877, three miles south of the famous lake of that name in the Maple valley.