Standing Rock

A Possible Historical Marker

While helping Lance and Cherise paint their house last week I was chatting with Cherise’s dad, Howard. I mentioned that about 30 years ago I had read a newspaper article about a big rock, south of Mount Vernon somewhere that Chief Blackhawk had signed a peace treaty at, or something like that. I had visited the rock at the time, but had long forgotten it.

I decided to try and find it again, so I made a number of calls to people who might be able to help me and did a bunch of on line research as well. I thought the name of the marker was Black Hawk Rock but soon found it is really called Standing Rock. It was not where Black Hawk had signed a peace treaty but rather, it was probably a visual marker of the edge of the Black Hawk Purchase of 1832.

The general story is that Chief Black Hawk was made to pay reparations at the end of the Black Hawk War. This consisted of a strip of land in eastern Iowa that was about 50 miles wide and roughly paralleled the Mississippi River. Reportedly, Standing Rock was right on the line and served as a survey marker.

The Cedar Rapids Public Library reference service looked into it for me and found a couple of newspaper articles about it. In the mean time I had located a Mount Vernon history buff, Dick Thomas (thanks for the tip, Howard) who was pretty well up on it and gave me directions on how to find it. Howard and I went on a road trip of discovery but were thwarted by an electrified barbed wire fence when we actually located it. We decided not to try and get closer for the moment. I did some further research and located the owners, Irvin and Louise Clark, who gave me permission to go in and walk around the rock. But they said if I didn’t want to climb the fence, I was probably going to have to go down to the gate which was about a half mile away. Ugh!

All the time I was collecting reference materials about the rock. I now have 5 newspaper articles, location maps, historical aerial photos from 1930 to the present and a list of people and agencies that I’ve contacted. The earliest newspaper article I have found was in the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Jun 23, 1957, page 8, and was written by Walt Carstens. The next three articles were all taken from Carsten’s original work and have nothing to add. However, a Mount Vernon Sun article by Sara Gaarde is the most complete. She had the earlier works to refer to but went far beyond them with her own research. Her original article was printed in the Sun in 1983 but the copy I have is from a revised and updated reprint, probably published in 1996, the sesquicentennial of Iowa’s statehood. I have not located her original article yet.

Armed with all my research I decided it was time to go back and take some pictures of it. What a comedy that turned out to be. Mr Clark, the owner, told me the electric fence was probably turned off and that it wasn’t strong enough to do anything but scare me anyway. And then, only if I wasn’t ready for it. I got my tripod and cameras and loaded up my step ladder that I was going to use as a stile. When I got there I straddled the fence with the ladder. The electricity was turned off as it turns out. I climbed up then realized there are no steps on the back side. My poor old arthritic knees are not good enough from that height. I climbed back down, turned the ladder 90 degrees so it was parallel with the fence and tried again. Putting my foot on the top wire right next to a reinforcement, I swung around and dropped to the ground. My legs gave way and I fell flat on my back. I wasn’t hurt but it would have been pretty funny to watch. Luckily, I didn’t impale myself on any cornstalks which are quite sharp and pointy after the harvest. Picking myself up I made two circuits arround the rock with a different camera each time. Coming out I was able to fit my feet into the regular fencing and just climbed down. Much more dignified.