TIMES ARE CHANGING

There probably are within every communities history stories of characters or individuals that have done or attempted to do what is seemingly out of the ordinary. In this regard Steamboat Rock was no exception.

In the fall of 1851, W.C. Rice came from Knox County, Illinois, with his parents Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Rice and family and settled on land east of what would later be Steamboat Rock.

Oldest brother Jacob Rice had come to the vicinity in the spring of 1851 and had written back glowing accounts of the beauty of this section of Iowa. The family soon located near Steamboat Rock.

W. C. Rice, had the unusual occupation of collecting live wild animals and birds for a New York firm which shipped them to various parks and zoos in Europe.

Old letters show that he was once paid three hundred dollars for a pair of elk. When he first shipped cranes and swans to them they wrote that they were the first they had ever seen and asked how much they would cost.

A side story in the life of W.C. Rice, involved a pair of timber wolves, and some hunters from Chicago.

There were a pair of timber wolves in the vicinity of Steamboat Rock, that preyed on the settlers hogs and sheep. Some Chicago men heard about the wolves and came here to hunt them. They brought a pair of wolf hounds along. Local men armed with pitchforks, guns and a large number of dogs met one evening at a
certain home with these Chicago men. Everyone was quite sure the wolves would be in this area.

All the dogs, with the exception of the homeowners dog were kept in the house until that dog hit the door trying to escape the wolves. At that signal everyone rushed out with the two hounds and a horde of other dogs attacking. The wolf was somewhat confused, but with a vicious snap here and there he put several of the dogs out of commission. Finally, tired out the wolf was cornered against an outside chimney of a house two miles away where rifle bullets soon ended his career.

The second wolf was killed later by a man who was watching for it from an attic window on a bright moonlight night when it entered his hog pen.

In the first years of settling our area a great deal of devastation and anxiety was caused by wolves. One example of this was their almost constant barking at night which was frightening to the pioneer families. To
many the noise they made was as dreadful as the destruction they caused. The most effective way of dealing with the wolves was known as a circular wolf hunt. All of the men and boys would turn out on an appointed day. They would form a circle of sorts comprising an area of several square miles. With horses and dogs they would
close in on one central field, gathering not only wolves, but also deer and many other animals. The men were well organized, and conformed to strict rules, operating as precisely as any small army. Using this method five, ten or more wolves could be killed in a single day. Guns were seldom used or even brought as their use would
have been very dangerous. The dogs were depended on for the final slaughter. The dogs had been held in check on a cord in the hands of their master until the signal was given, and away they would go to the center of battle. The scene must have been quite exciting.

Among the “hard to believe” stories uncovered during the process of recounting Steamboat Rock’s history is of a livestock man that cooked cattle feed in a steam boiler and shipped the steers to England.

Ash Noyes, had a livestock feeding yard south of the present cemetery. Feed for his cattle was cooked in large steam boilers and the cattle were fattened until they weighed 2,000 to 2,500 pounds.

Noyes once exhibited a 3.600 pound steer at the Chicago stock yard.

He was known to have shipped a train load of cattle to New York, then had them loaded on a sailboat for England. During a storm at sea the port holes had to be closed, and most of the steers smothered. They were thrown overboard. The few that reached England brought very little money.

B. F. Bear came to Steamboat Rock after the Civil War. He had served as a quartermaster in the Union army. He
bought 200 acres of land west of Steamboat that was all timbered.

He raised purebred Herford Cattle which he sold by rail to the Livestock Market in Chicago. It was the custom for farmers who sold cattle this way to travel with the cattle on the train to market.

On one occasion he could not get the price he wanted in Chicago, he took them to New York. While waiting at the docket they were sold and went directly on to the Queen’s ship to England.