History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/3/Counties/Sioux
SIOUX COUNTY was at one time included in the original county of Fayette and was created in 1851. Its western boundary is the Big Sioux River and it lies in the second tier south of Minnesota. The county has an area of seven hundred sixty-nine square miles and was named for the Sioux Indians who, at one time, occupied northwestern Iowa. The Rock and Floyd rivers flow through it in a southwesterly direction and the surface is rolling prairie with but little native timber. There are bluffs along the Big Sioux River rising to a height of from one to two hundred feet.
Among the first settlers in the county were E. L. Stone, F. M. Hubbell, W. H. and Francis Frame and Joseph Bell. They located in the valley of the Big Sioux River in 1859.
In 1860 the county was organized by the election of the following officers: W. H. Frame, judge; F. M. Hubbell, clerk; E. L. Stone, recorder and treasurer. There were but fifteen persons in the county at this time and for many years the danger from attacks of the Sioux Indians was so great that but few settlers ventured so far on the frontier. In 1860 a town was laid out on the Big Sioux named Calliope. It was in the southern part of the county and became the first county-seat, remaining such until 1872. There the first school was taught in 1867. A newspaper was established at Calliope by John R. Curry named the Sioux County Herald. In 1869 Henry Hospers and others from Pella visited the county and made arrangements to establish a colony of Hollanders. Five hundred sixty-two preëmptions were filed on Government lands in the vicinity of the Floyd River in the southeastern part of the county and in the spring of 1870 forty families from Pella settled upon them. During the summer Henry Hospers laid out the town of Orange City, which, in 1872, became the county-seat and the Sioux County Herald was moved to that place.