The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
1865–1880
Chapman's 1880 census of the town's business is the fullest picture of North Liberty before the railroads. He prints the place at "a population of nearly 400" — against the federal census of the same year, which counted 346; both stand, the census being the count of record. His business list: two large dry-goods establishments, two boot and shoe stores, one drug and hardware store, one grocery and hardware store, one planing-mill and manufacturing establishment, one grist-mill, one millinery store, one butcher shop, one barber, four practicing physicians, three churches, and one school-house. The trades had been gathering since the war: Elijah Lee, blacksmith, 1865; Norman S. Miller's dry-goods establishment, 1865; Houser Brothers' general store, 1875. The planing mill in Chapman's list was the Cole Brothers', built 1866, burned 1871, and reincorporated 1873 as the North Liberty Manufacturing Company, making wagons and buggies. Chapman also prints the town's standing want in 1880, which the next article answers: "All the disadvantage that this place meets with is the lack of railroad facilities; but should a railroad be constructed through this place it would become one of the most flourishing towns in the county." Howard, a generation later, could open his township account by placing the town "at the junction of two of our great railroads, the Wabash and the Three 'I.'"