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>> Rory Goff of Fairfield, Iowa: This area had been a trading area with the Indians,
up until that final sale, about 1836, and the first settlement in 1839.
The town of Agency is named Agency because it is was an Indian Agency.
And that is where the Indian Agents actually lived--General Street.
And that's where Chief Wapello asked to be buried, next to General Street.
So apparently they had a pretty good relationship. This town became pretty big early on because,
well, obviously, people were buying up land around here to farm.
But they needed to buy and sell that land through a land agent...
which basically meant a huge amount of business coming and going.
Fairfield is where the land agent for this area was located in the early 1840s--late
1830s-1840s. And Fairfield had that going for it and it
also had a large number of lawyers, and merchants, basically come into town to
serve as the nexus point for all of Jefferson county.
And Fairfield was chosen as the seat of Jefferson county,
so it was a pretty thriving town, as these towns went.
It was small, you know, in the 1840s, but it got large quickly by comparison.
[background: train horn.] And early on the public park was considered
to be a real gem. The put trees on it early on.
They fenced it off made it an inviolate park early on.
Fairfield was very proud of her park from almost the beginning--considered to be the
most beautiful park in the state. [pause]
So the business early on... the whole town of Fairfield was a square of five blocks by
five blocks. Twenty-five blocks square,
with the park centered; the park being the center of those twenty-five blocks, center
block. Basically the town was the square and the
businesses directly on the square, that square around the park,
and then the outlying areas were considered to be--you know, two or three blocks away
from downtown--if you were part of the Township, part of the actual
town. So, it was not a large town.
Well, the railroads came in, in about the eighteen-fift--I don't know exactly when it
was. Sometime in 1858. And there had been some wheeling and dealing
to make sure that the railroad came through town,
because if it hadn't we probably wouldn't have a town now.
Being on the railroad track was really the kiss of life for these towns in the mid-nineteenth
century. You see many many ghost towns in this county
that was around at that time and basically the ones that didn't make it, didn't
manage to get a railroad to come through their area, are the ones who didn't survive, as
far as I can see anyway. I'm no expert.