CLAYTON COUNTY
Established: December 21, 1837
Organized: September 10, 1838
County Seat: Elkader
Clayton County, (796 square miles) was named for John
Middleton Clayton (1796-1856), a U.S. senator and cabinet
member from Delaware, who assisted in the passage of the
Wisconsin Territorial bill.
According to some accounts, the first white man first set
foot on Iowa soil in Clayton County on June 17, 1673,
when the French missionary Father Jacques Marquette and
trapper-explorer Louis Joliet, on their way down the
Wisconsin River from Green Bay, are said to have crossed
to the west bank of the Mississippi River and beached
their canoe at a point just below McGregor now known as
Pike’s Peak. However, most historians now
believe that Marquette and Joliet did not touch Iowa soil
until eight days later, on June 25, 1673, when they
landed at a point near the mouth of the Iowa River in
Louisa County, and were met by friendly Indians.
The first white settlers in Clayton County arrived in
1832. One of the first celebrations in observance
of the anniversary of American Independence in what is
now Iowa took place on July 4, 1838, at Table Rock, about
two miles northeast of Elkader.
Clayton County had a “county seat on wheels”
during its early years. The first county seat was a
Prairie La Porte (meaning Door of the Prairie.)
Laid out in 1837, the town has been called Guttenberg
since 1847, in tribute to Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of
movable printing type. According to the sheriff’s
census taken in 1838, there were 274 persons living in
the county at that time. The first court was held
in 1838 in rooms rented for $5 per day in Graybill’s
Tavern.
At a meeting held on December 5, 1839, the county
commissioners “ordered that the be a court-house
built on the public square at Prairie La Porte, by the
first of September next, size and quality of building to
be here after mentioned….” The board then
contracted with Robert Hatfield “for the delivery of
the stuff necessary for the erection of the county
building, and with David Hastings for the construction
thereof.” On August 3, 1840, the $73.50 claim
of Robert Hatfield for building material, and the $23
claim of David Hastings for erecting the county building
were allowed. Thus, Clayton County’s first
county building cost $96.50.
An act to relocate the county seat received approval of
the Territorial Governor on January 14, 1840. The
commissioners selected a site and name it Allotat (a Sauk
word meaning Gander). However, a majority of the
voters at the August election favored retaining the
county seat at Prairie La Porte. Another Act to relocate
the county seat was approved on February 15, 1843, and
the commissioners again drove their site stakes.
This time the location was one-eighth of a section south
of the one selected in 1840 and was named Jacksonville.
A courthouse was erected at Jacksonville at a cost of
$675, and was accepted on April 4, 1844. It was on
May 27, 1846, that the town’s name was changed from
Jacksonville to Garnavillo, after a town in
Ireland. Garnavillo remained the county seat until
1856 when it was changed to Elkader—named for a
famous Algerian leader, Abdel-Kader. At the time,
he was fighting the French who had been trying for 15
years to take over his country. His deeds inspired
the founders of the little village in Clayton County to
name their settlement for him. Elkader was the
county seat for only one year before it was returned to
Guttenberg. However, the county records went back
to Elkader in 1860, and Stone Hall was rented by the
county to serve as a courthouse. In September 1866,
the old courthouse at Garnavillo was sold at auction for
$3,000. There were other efforts to move the county
seat to McGregor and Garnavillo, but without avail.
The county’s third courthouse was built at Elkader
in 1867 and was enlarged 10 years later. This
substantial red brick structure is two stores high, and
has hollow walls and arched windows. The stone for
the foundation came from a local quarry. An
addition was contracted for on April 6, 1877, and this
became the main part of the courthouse, the old building
being about one-third of the courthouse as it now
stands. The cost of the addition was $10,000, half
of which was paid by the citizens of Elkader.
The cornerstone of this building was laid on July 4,
1877, or 10 years after the first third of the courthouse
was erected, and bears the inscription “July 4, A.L.
5877.” The A.L. stands for Anno Lucis, or Year
of Light, a dated used by Freemasons to indicate the
number of years that have elapsed since 4000 B.C., which
is assumed to be the date the Ten Commandments were
revealed to Moses. Thus, 4000 is added to the date
1877 to arrive at A.L. 5877.
At the time it was built, the courthouse was described as
“a neat and commodious one,” reflecting
credit on the community and the county. While the
county seat of Clayton County changed several times in 20
years, it has been located at Elkader since 1860.
Some of the early court records date back to 1838, or
more than eight years before Iowa became a state.
Located in a park overlooking the Turkey River, the red
brick Clayton County Courthouse with its white trim,
truncated hip roof, and railed widow walk are typical of
an earlier era. The front windows are round arched
and the cornice is bracketed.
The cupola was expanded in 1896 to include a clock
tower. The cost of constructing the tower--$$1,120—was
paid for by the county, as was the 800-pound bell, which
cost $190, but the clock, costing $550, was purchased by
citizens of Elkader. The tower stands approximately
45 feet above the courthouse roof and is 16 feet square
at the base. It is surrounded by a four-foot-wide
walk.
A concrete parking lot was added in 1936 and enlarged in
the 1960’s. The courtroom was remodeled in the
1950’s and again in 1974. A new entrance was
added to the building in 1971 and the exterior was
sand-blasted and tuck-pointed. The clock tower was
repaired and painted in 1974.
A Civil War monument, dedicated May 30, 1919, stands
before one side of the courthouse. Memorial Day
services are held here each year.
Until July 1975, Clayton County was the only county in
Iowa with two county homes—one primarily for mental
patients, the other for indigents. At that time,
new quarters were completed for these residents and the
old Clayton County Mental Health Institute, built in
1897, was remodeled for a county office building.
The brick and stone, two-story building is located about
three blocks from the courthouse and now houses some of
the county offices formerly located in the courthouse,
courthouse annex, and rented space. The old brick
courthouse annex was then leased to the Elkader
Historical Society.
The history of the splendid stone bridge near the
courthouse at Elkader is also of interest. Prior to
construction of the bridge, the Turkey River, about 90
miles in length, had been spanned at this point by
several double iron trusses of the Truesdale
patent. These bridges became defective and required
frequent repairs. This location was considered
suitable for a stone arch bridge which would be permanent
and would avoid the heavy annual expense of replanking
the floor of either an iron or wooden bridge. In
addition, Cole’s quarry, near town, was able to
provide sufficient magnesium limestone of fine quality,
free from all imperfections and resistant to the action
of frost and water. Furthermore, bids received by
the board of supervisors were higher for an iron bridge
than for the stone bridge.
The bridge contract was awarded in 1889 to Byrne and
Blade, stone masons and contractors from Dubuque, for
$13,000. The designer was M. Tschirgi, Jr., who had
also engineered the high bridge at Dubuque. The
plans called for two spans, each 84 feet in the clear,
with a center pier 19 feet wide at the foundation.
Other dimensions were: clear height of each arch,
27.9 feet; outside width of bridge, 34 feet; clear width
of bridge, 30 feet; total length of bridge, 346
feet.
Work was begun on the bridge in August, and it took nine
months to complete it. A total of 4,161 cubic yards
of material went into the bridge. Its estimated
weight is 18,618,255 pounds or 9,309 tons. The
difficult and dangerous work was completed with any
accident.
The Elkader bridge was claimed to be “the finest and
longest stone arch highway bridge in the State, or in
fact anywhere west of the Mississippi River.”
Both the stone bridge and the Clayton County Courthouse
at Elkader have been placed on the National Register of
Historic Places.
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