Council Bluffs (Earlier known as Kanesville),
Kane Township

This area of the Louisiana Purchase was home to the Missouri, Pottawattamie, and Otoe when Lewis and Clark made their epic journey up the Missouri River in 1804. A council held on the bluffs among members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Missouri and Otoe tribes prompted Capt. Clark to name the area "Council Bluffs."

In the 1840s several thousand Mormons arrived in the area. It was here in 1847 that Brigham Young was elected president of the Mormon Church. When gold was discovered in California, the Mormon Trail through Council Bluffs soon replaced the Oregon Trail as the primary route to the West, and thousands of fortune hunters passed through.

In 1859 Abraham Lincoln visited Council Bluffs. While he was President, Lincoln selected the area as the transcontinental railroad's eastern terminus and appointed Council Bluffs resident Gen. Grenville M. Dodge as chief construction engineer. Council Bluffs became a major rail center, linking the industrial East with the growing West.