Mars was laid out was first owned by Jerry Ladd, Mr. Marvin and B. F. Betsworth. The town was platted the summer of 1869, soon after the completion of the Iowa Falls and Sioux City Railroad to that point. John I. Blair, who built the road, visited the place with officials of the company and a party of ladies. It was agreed to form the name of the new town by using the initial letter of the Christian names of the party which were arranged by them to spell Le Mars. The ladies were Mrs. Adeline M. Swain, Mrs. Galusha Parsons, Mrs. W. W. Walker, Mrs. John Weare, Mrs. W. R. Smith and Mrs. John Cleghorn. The letters when arranged would make the names Selmar, or Le Mars, and the ladies decided by ballot in favor of Le Mars, which thus became the name of the town.
Among the firs to open business houses in Le Mars were Blodgett and Foster, J. W. Young, John Gordon, Orson Bennett and C. H. Bennett. On the 3d of February, 1871, J. C. Buchanan established the first newspaper, called the Le Mars Sentinel. At the general election in 1871 Le Mars was made the county-seat.
POCAHONTAS COUNTY was created in 1851 and named for the Indian maiden who saved the life of Captain John Smith in the early years of the settlement of the colony of Virginia. It lies in the third tier south of the Minnesota line in the fourth east of the Missouri River and contains an area of five hundred seventy-six squares miles. The county was attached to Webster in 1855. The Lizzard and the west fork of the Des Moines River flow through the eastern part of the county among the small lakes within its limits are Swan Lake, Clear Lake and Lizzard Lake.
In February, 1855, Michael Collins, Mr. Hickey and families ascended the Lizzard from Fort Dodge, took claims and built cabins. The following year John and Patrick Calligan, Dennis Connors, Patrick McCabe,
