Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
AGRICULTURE
AGRICULTURE. It took decades for the value of agricultural products to exceed the value of the LEAD being mined around Dubuque. Federal officials discouraged farming. Ore mined was used to pay the land lease. Wood harvested was to be used in the smelters and not to build fences.
Miners were known for creating small gardens. Crops grown near their homes for their own use included potatoes and turnips along with grass and hay for the horses. By 1833 mine superintendents became more lax in their enforcement and orchards were planted. Although everything from peaches to plums were planted, it was apples from which cider was made that became the most popular.
Among the first settlers who became, for the time, large scale farmers, were the Langworthy brothers and Mathias HAM. The Langworthys planted corn and some vegetables while Ham planted 150 acres of corn and hay at EAGLE POINT. Wheat was more popular than corn because it was easier to grow. According to Daryl Watson, executive director of the Galena-Jo Daviess County Historical Society the tri-state region by the mid-1850s was known as the "wheat basket of the nation." Michael D. GIBSON found evidence of "truck farms" in the Peru Road area during this time. The FARMERS' MARKET in Dubuque started in 1858. New crops were tried after the CIVIL WAR.
Some farmers began raising Holstein and Jersey cows for milk by the 1880s. Iowa's first creamery opened near Manchester in 1872 according to Iowa Agriculture. Other creameries opened in the 1890s with the invention of equipment for separating cream from milk. Dairy farming developed in the tri-state region because the topsoil was thin and did not support many crops. The production of grapes, evidenced by the terraced hillsides in Dubuque only observable in the winter, led to wine-making.
See: FARMERS' CLUB
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Source:
Chanaud, Timothy, "Ham, Beef, Butter Move In," Telegraph Herald, February 23, 1988, p. 41