Part III: The Railroad and Jewell: The earliest railroad effort in the area was in 1874 when a narrow guage rail line (3 feet between the rails) had been completed from Des Moines to Ames.  First known as the Iowa and Minnesota, then the Des Moines and Minnesota, the line me the standard gauged (4' 8.5" between the rails) east-west line in Ames. Under the presidency of James Callanan, a prominent Des Moines banker and real estate agent, the narrow gauge was finally known as the Des Moines and Minneapolis Railroad and was headed for points north.  For any settlement that hoped for access to markets, a railroad became a necessity.  Callanan started his railroad north.

      Early in 1877, an election was held in Lafayette Township of Story County for a five percent tax to pull the Des Moines and Minneapolis to Story City.  By the spring of 1877, the four southeast townships of Hamilton County (Ellsworth, Lincoln, Lyon and Scott) did likewise, but the monies would have been made available only if the railroad had actually been constructed and operated to within a mile of those townships by December 1 of 1878.   Work began on the narrow gauge line toward a point that matched that location; a town was laid out on April 19, 1878 and humbly named Callanan.   But the future of Callanan lay not there, but to two new towns about to make their debut.

      As the railroad building fever reached a frenzy, the companies began to build extensions throughout the state. The railroads wanted to capitalize on the investments, so about every seven miles, a depot would be erected, a siding laid down, and a town would materialize around the new hoped for connection to the outside world.   The railroads also built lines solely to claim an areaa and to discourage incursion by competitors.   The Cedar Rapids and Missouri, now the Chicago and North Western railroad, did just that.   Through a maze of interconnected directorships, new railroad companies came into existence and just as quickly disappeared.   One new line, the Toledo and North Western Company of Tama, proposed building a line north and west of Tama into the yet unconnected Iowa lands toward Sioux City.   On May 22, 1880, the T&NW proposed building a line from Tama City to northwest Iowa and on into Minnesota if the, too, could win tax incentives and real estate bargains along the way.   With remarkable fervor, the T&NW completed an 80.39 mile line from Toledo to Webster City and ran its first passenger train between the two cities on December 6, 1880.   When the line was constructed, it passed west through newly developed Hubbard, Radcliffe, a new Ellsworth, and through David Jewell enticements of land for depots, shops and yards.   This rapid development in from the east brought a stirring of activity in little towns at the end of the narrow gauge.   It was clear the new railroad missed the existing town to the southeast, Callanan.   Big money could await those who rose to take advantage of this new town; John R. and Jane R. King of Callanan came to the area for profit.

      With money from his grain and saloon businesses in Callanan from 1878 until 1881, John R. King and his wife, Jane, brought up what property they believed would be the site of the new town along the Toledo and North Western. With his money, he persuaded the railroad to build the depot on his land south of the tracks, applied for a post office to be in his part of town south of the tracks, and put his lots south of the tracks up for sale.   To make more money, King platted his lots at 22 feet in width and 120 feet in depth.   King's Main Street shrank to 80 feet wide, rather than maintain the 100 foot width in Jewell's town.   From the Jewell family account, there never was any animosity between the Jewells and the Kings.   The Kings made the money, but the name Jewell stuck as the new entity was labeled Jewell's Junction of Jewell Junction.   Once the railroad had arrived and businesses began to build on King's land, the original town began to move to the new Main Street, today''s north-south street through Jewell. David Jewell and his wife were buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Jewell.   King's legacy ramains through a scholarship fund for local students known as the Jane R. King fund.