Genealogy Trails
Pottawattamie County, Iowa

Almost 100 years ago, the Hardin Stage House was built in a small grove of willowy pines and surrounded by numerous wild native flowers. Travelers moving westward behind teams of prancing horses would spend the night there and continue the next morning to Kanesville -- last outpost of civilization. Today that stage-house still stands, its twelve rooms clean, though devoid of those deep snuggly feather beds that invited rest and relaxation after a day's ride in a bouncing stage coach.

Located on the Henry Roennau farm, two miles south of Quick, the building is one of the last land marks of pioneer days. It was built (no one is just sure of the date) by Dave Hardin. His son, who now lives in Missouri, is 77 years old and was born in the stage house. It was an "old house" when he was born. Its cottonwood rafters have stood well the test of time, though some years ago the log exterior was supplanted by the use of siding.

Mr. Roennau now uses the old summer kitchen attached to the house for a milk room, while one of the hired hands sleeps in what once must have been the reception room. The rest of the twelve rooms stand majestically silent. The stage-house continued doing business until the Rock Island pushed its tracks to Council Bluffs," Mr. Roennau said. "Then Hardin moved to Missouri. There was no longer a need for his stage-house."

Pointing up the valley, he said the old stage coach road could still be seen. It followed the ridge to the little valley that now shelters the modern Roennau home.

The meat problem was one they did not have to worry about. Hardin, who used to come back here to visit the place, has told me many times how he would just step outside of the house and be able to shoot a deer or two. In our diggings about the place we have found many deer antlers, some of them in large numbers, indicating that the heads of the slain animals were buried," Mr. Roennau said. Only a few years ago, just south of the Roennau home and on the banks of Keg Creek, Mr. Roennau found the well preserved skull of a buffalo. With it was the antlers of a deer. Indian relics, such as arrow heads and stone hatchets, have also been found in the mounds in the timbered land near the old stage-house.

[Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Published May 30, 1935, submitted by Ann]

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The first road in the township was the old Council Bluffs & Lewis Stage Road which ran across the southern part of the township, east and west. It was over this route that such an extensive business was done by the Western Stage Company on their line from Council Bluffs to des Moines and Iowa City. There is one station on this line in Hardin Township known as Hardin Station, so call after Richard Hardin or "Old Dick" Hardin the popular station agent for a number of years at this point.

[1883 History of Pottawattamie County, page 326, submitted by Ann]

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First election for Keg Creek was held at the brick schoolhouse known as the Keg Creek schoolhouse, on the west side of Keg Creek and near what is known as the Dick Hardin farm. This is about twelve miles from Council Bluffs and at the crossing of the stage road at Keg Creek, a station was kept for many years by Richard Hardin, son of the Col. Hardin who brought the Pottawattamie Indians to their reservation, where Council Bluffs now stands. Richard Hardin or "Dick" as he was called, continued to keep a public house at that point until 1874, when he sold out the farm to John T. Baldwin, and removed to Amazonia, a few miles north of St. Joseph, MO, where he still lives.

[1883 History of Pottawattamie County, page 338, submitted by Ann]