Editing Sioux Rapids, Iowa (section)

==History==
Two early surveyors, Lane and Ray, found the area so attractive for settlement that in 1855 they illegally laid a claim and built a cabin in section 12 of Barnes Township and over-wintered there.<ref name="stormlake.com">{{cite web | url=https://www.stormlake.com/articles/early-history-of-buena-vista-county-and-lee-township/ | title=Early history of Buena Vista County and Lee Township }}</ref> William S. Lee was a wealthy New Yorker who came to Sioux Rapids in 1858, staked a very early claim, and soon controversially acquired around 60,000 acres of “swamp land” at 16¢ per acre. For this he was contracted to build a courthouse and construct a bridge over the Little Sioux River, but never did. He sold large amounts of this land, but after years of legal action, Lee and his purchasers lost all their claims in 1882 in a final case against them. Lee returned to New York in 1863 to educate his children, returning in 1868 to find his early claim had been “jumped” by a William Fuller. In 1870, after reversal of an earlier decision, Fuller was allowed to keep his land, in a protracted case finally decided by the US Secretary of the Interior.<ref name="stormlake.com"/> In 1868, Fletcher Americus Blake he built the first frame house in Sioux Rapids, and with T.W. Twiford the first flour mill in the county, using the Little Sioux River for water power. His mill also operated as a saw mill. In the 1870 census he is listed as a manufacturer with real estate worth $4,500. Blake was the first postmaster in Sioux Rapids and the first person from the county to be elected to the Iowa House, serving in the 1872 session. That year he sold his mill and moved to Denver for health reasons. In 1869 David Evans and lawyer D. C. Thomas bought out the Ridgeway homestead and the present town of Sioux Rapids was platted out. On the Lee 1870 census, David is a substantial landowner and also blacksmith. He was in this business with his son-in-law H. W. Mayne until 1881. In 1889 he sold his remaining town lots to buy a farm in Clay County near Linn Grove. During the 50th anniversary for Sioux Rapids, on July 4, 1905, Evans rode together in the “Historic Parade” with his 89 year old, long time buddy, Johnny Burr, another ex-soldier pioneer hunter-trapper and faithful attendant at Abner Bell’s deathbed in 1895. The Evans and their wives are buried at Linn Grove, with many other Welsh pioneers.<ref name="stormlake.com"/>
Sioux Rapids was named from the Rapids on the [[Little Sioux River]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Chicago and North Western Railway Company|title=A History of the Origin of the Place Names Connected with the Chicago & North Western and Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railways|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OspBAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA125|year=1908|page=125}}</ref> In 1869, Sioux Rapids was designated the county seat of Buena Vista County. In 1876, the courthouse at Sioux Rapids burned, and in 1878, the county seat was transferred to Storm Lake.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_bH8HtIwXzdcC | title=History of Western Iowa, Its Settlement and Growth | publisher=Western Publishing Company | year=1882 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_bH8HtIwXzdcC/page/n440 441]}}</ref>