Iowa History Month: Wooden shoes on a warpath
Although we now associate Sioux County and Orange City with tulips, wooden shoes, and all things Dutch, Orange City was not the county's first seat...
Although we now associate Sioux County and Orange City with tulips, wooden shoes, and all things Dutch, Orange City was not the county's first seat of government. Calliope (pronounced Cal-ee-ope), a hamlet on the banks of the Big Sioux River near present-day Hawarden, was the first county seat. All of that changed when the first band of 70 to 80 Dutch families arrived from Pella in 1870. Just months after the Dutch settlers rolled onto the area's vast prairies, the Netherlanders challenged the non-Dutch settlers for numerical dominance.