1889 being but $142. There are other enterprises of the councils of the last few years that deserve mention, and among these are the complete drainage system, embracing over three miles of tile, stone arches over Main and Linn Streets slough crossings, and a sewer of twelve-inch size, laid about eleven to thirteen feet below the middle of Linn Street, between Fourth and Seventh Streets. The council's energy shown in capturing the State road-grader contest, mentioned elsewhere in this volume, indicates the public spirit which has given Nevada such excellent and remarkably clean and shaded streets, which are surpassed by no other town of its size in the State of Iowa. The Nevada Cemetery Association, organized about 1865, transferred its beautiful cemetery to this city in 1871.
The successive mayors have been George A. Kellogg, 1869; E. B. Potter, 1870; J. H. Talbott, 1871-72; D. H. McCord, 1873; J. L. Dana, 1874; James Hawthorn, 1875-76; George A. Kellogg, 1877; William Lockridge, 1878-80; E. D. Fenn, 1881; J. A. Fitchpatrick, 1882; H. M. Funson, 1883; F. D. Thompson, 1884-85; William Gates, 1886-87, and H. C. Boardman, 1888-90.
Banking generally begins in money loaning of a private character, and Nevada had its share of this until a New York firm, controlled by T. Cree, established the Story County Bank about 1867, with a Mr. Parker as cashier. This ran but a couple of years or more until a creditor, John Hall, secured it long enough to close it up. In 1870 O. B. Dutton opened a private bank on the present site of the First National Bank, and later on built that block. In 1881 he sold' out to W. F. Swayze, who proceeded to organize the First National Bank, with an authorized capital of $50,000. The officers chosen were R. J. Silliman, president; J. A. Fitchpatrick, vice-president, and W. F. Swayze, cashier. The directors included these officers and Frank Curtiss, D. W. Read, William Lockridge, J. C. Mitchell and J. A. Fitchpatrick. The only change made officially is the substitution of James Hawthorn for D. W. Read, deceased, in the directory. Their correspondents are the Bank of New York (N. B. A.), Union National Bank of Chicago, and banks at Des Moines and Marshalltown. Another gentleman, Otis Briggs, added banking to other business in 1870, with a capital of $20,000. He soon turned his whole attention to it, and in 1882 Jay A. King became a partner. It has been a private bank from the first, with the name Farmers' Bank. Its correspondents are the Bank of New York (N. B. A.) and Commercial National Bank, Chicago.
The press of Nevada, besides being newspapers, have represented the Republican and Democratic parties, the Anti-Monopoly movement and religious life. It began early, too, in that first paper of the county, the Story County Advocate, of which No. 4 of Vol. I was issued January 29, 1857, the first issue now obtainable, and owned by the Representative, a lineal successor to it. It was published at Nevada by R. R. Thrall, its editor. In the early winter of 1862-63 it was succeeded by another Republican sheet, or rather, simply changed its name to the Republican Reveille, under the editorship of one of the most independent writers in the list of Story County editors, George F. Schoonover. Vol. I, No. 26, was issued on December 4, 1862. Late in 1863 its name was changed again to the Story County Aegis, of which No. 19, as Vol. II, was issued November 25, of that year. Mr. A. Keltz owned the plant then, and its editor was John M. Brainard, a Republican, now of the Boone Standard, and who became proprietor in July, 1866. In November, 1868, its policy became Independent Republican, under