Coonville
Mills County, Iowa

Coonville
Residents

History

The Beginning of Coonville
 

Coonville is now known as Glenwood, Iowa.  Coonville was established by a Mormon wagon train in 1846, under the direction of Bishop Libbeus T. Coons.

The exodus of Latter-day Saints from western Illinois commenced February 4, 1846.  They left their homes in the face of hostile mobs, composed mostly of older settlers who resented the tremendous influx of Latter-day Saints.  The Mormons tended to do business with one another to the exclusion of older settlers and to vote for the same candidates on Election Day.  Thus, they soon won commercial and political control of the communities.  Violence broke out in western Illinois, as it had previously in Ohio and Missouri.  When leaders of the church began to take more than one wife, the violence multiplied and resulted in the death in June 1844 of Joseph Smith, founder of the church.  The church continued to grow, however, and mobs waylaid Latter-day Saint travelers, torched isolated farms and even burned a small LDS village in western Illinois.

In the face of this continued opposition, Brigham Young and other leaders of the church started the move across the Mississippi River February 4, 1846.  The ferry ran day and night, but couldn't begin to carry all those ox-drawn covered wagons waiting to cross.  Most camped in eastern Iowa until late winter and then started moving across Iowa in great wagon trains.

When they reached the Missouri River, June 14, 1846, the Mormons camped about where the Iowa School for the Deaf now is located, south of present-day Council Bluffs.  As they waited there, more and more wagon trains arrived.  The pioneers built a ferry about where south Omaha Bridge now is located.  The ferry was opened to public use July 1, 1846.  But, again, the crossing was very slow.

As the cool wet spring turned to a hot dry summer, more and more wagons trains left the vicinity of the ferry in search of more wood, water, and grass.  Bishop Coons was one of the wagon masters.  He led his group to the spot where Glenwood now is.  A town was built and some land planted to beets and buckwheat.

The following year hundred of acres were cleared and planted to a variety of crops.  More Latter-day Saints came up the Mississippi-Missouri by steamboat to an Mormon town, near the original ferry site, called Council Point.  Some of those Latter-day Saints from Europe trickled down to Coonville where they farmed and worked in shops to get equipment for the 1000-mile trek to the Great Salt Lake Valley.

Bishop Coons, a medical doctor and a businessman, built a ferry just south of the Platte River about 1850 to ferry gold rushers over the Missouri River, on their way to California.  The LDS farmers sold much of their surplus produce to the gold rushers.

In 1851 and 1852 the residents of Coonville packed up their belongings, crossed over the Missouri River and headed out for the Salt Lake Valley.  Some were fortunate enough to sell their homes, their businesses, and their farms to non-Mormon settlers, who then renamed the city Glenwood.

by Gail Geo. Holmes