Colfax County

A Howells postcard features photographs that depict some of the beginning of its history. The street scenes show early development, and the Bohemian Hall offers an indication of its cultural roots. Two churches indicate the importance of religion and religious freedom. The German Parochial School shows the community’s emphasis and importance placed on education of their youth. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Howells’s namesake, James Smith Howell, arrived in 1856 with his wife, Eliza Jane. He was a schoolteacher with a lifelong love of education and a farmer. He was also a surveyor for the railroad. Howell began at a different site, called Buschville, and moved to the present-day Howells site near the railroad. The “s” on Howells was officially added in 1937. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Six staff members stand on the wide front veranda of the Merchants Hotel in 1890. The sign indicates the proprietor of the hotel was L.A. Allen. A two-wheeled handcart waits down below. The numerous windows and size of the structure would indicate that generous accommodations were provided for guests. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Loren Alexander Allen and his wife, Mary, are shown in this 1890 family portrait. They had four children: Lillie, Edna, Chester, and Nathan. Loren settled in Howell, along with his mother, on a farm in 1853. In 1889, he left the farm and purchased his rooming house, the Merchants Hotel, which he operated until his death in 1936. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

The Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad existed from 1880 to 1903, when the Chicago & North Western Railway purchased it. Buschville businesses and homeowners moved their buildings several miles to the railroad site from 1886 through 1889. Buschville was established where entrepreneurs thought the tracks would be laid. The new town became Howell. The name was altered to Howells almost 50 years later. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Antonia Busch stands to the right of the front door at her home in 1886. Others names written on the photograph include Joe, Mike, Ben, and Theresa Nagengast, along with their mother. Antonia sold 80 acres of her farm to the railroad for $50 an acre. She realized a tidy sum of profit since she purchased the whole farm for $500. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

A crowd gathers on the boardwalk at the Joseph Novak & Co. store in the 1890s. Three people perch on windowsills on the second floor. A number of barrel kegs lay helter-skelter in the street near the horse hitching posts. The boardwalk is raised because of the floods that would inundate the town when Maple Creek overflowed its banks. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Joseph Novak & Co. holds a horse-drawn farm implement sale in the street. The building marquee is dated 1900 and reads, “Joseph Novak & Co.”; below that are the words “hardware” and “furniture.” F. Pakes Meat Market is the building to the left of Novak’s. A general store stands close to the railroad cars down the street. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

The interior view of the Wenzel Stangel Harness Shop in early Howells shows many horse collars suspended from two racks. Stangel stands behind the counter on the right. Harnesses hang on wall pegs in the back, and the shelves are filled with more products for sale. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Frank Vesely and Anton Kunhart owned a general merchandise and dry goods store in 1908. Vesely stands in the aisle toward the back, and Kunhart is behind the counter on the right. The two women clerks are not identified. Bolts of cloth are stacked on the table in the middle of the store and samples are displayed above the shelves on the left. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

J.D Bukacek had a men’s store in Howells from 1909 to 1914. One of the gentlemen pictured is possibly Bukacek. Hats are stacked on the right counter and in the display case. Below them hang pairs of shoes. On the right wall and in the back are suits and coats on racks. To the left, gloves and suspenders are on display. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

A panoramic view of Howell was taken from the mill sometime between the 1890s and early 1900s. Joseph Novak & Co.’s and F. Pakes Meat Market’s marquees are in the upper right. Farther behind them are the Bohemian Hall and the steeple of a church. Down in front are signs that have W.M. Coulter’s name and appear to be advertisements for his shows. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

John A. Kovar is the photographer of this scene called “Olden Howells.” The view is taken from the east and looks west across the residential and business district, probably in the early 1900s. On the far horizon stands a large building that looks like the new public school, which was finished in 1911. A tall water standpipe is seen in the middle of the photograph. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Elevators and lumberyards were among the first businesses necessary for every town and village, whether they were large or small communities, for supplies and storage. Howells had the Drahota Elevator, on the left, and the Crowell Lumber Yard on the right. A yard with lumber supplies is in the middle of the photograph. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

George W. Heun was a prominent pioneer in Howells. He and his partner, F.J. Hrubesky, opened a hardware, implement, and wagon shop in a building moved in from Buschville in the late 1880s. He designed and erected many places of business in Howells. He installed the first telephone, owned the first car, ran a Ford dealership, and owned a variety store. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

The first railroad snowplow is shown here clearing snow from the railroad tracks. A large V-shaped blade is mounted on the front of an engine. The point of the blade will burst through drifts, and the slanted sides help throw the snow off to the side of the tracks. Blizzards were dangerous and hazardous, and this welcomed invention replaced shovels and manpower. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

In this early Howells hardware store, wringer washers crowd along the aisle with a bicycle, a tricycle, a treadle sewing machine, and a wicker baby buggy. The shelves are stacked to the ceiling with coffee pots, pans, teakettles, and buckets on the right. On the left, tools and paintbrushes are displayed. Shovels and pitchforks hang in the back. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Four unidentified gentlemen stand in Koza’s Pharmacy, an early establishment in Howells. The pharmacy has much more than pills or medicine for sale in this photograph. There are lamps on the counter to the right, and there is a selection of cards or postcards in a carousel to the left. Two licenses or certificates are prominent on the back wall. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

In the 1930s and 1940s, Vern Walker had a barbershop in Howells. Besides the three barber chairs by the wall mirrors, there is a raised shoe shine chair in the rear. Near the back wall is a cabinet with 10 shelves of pockets filled with shaving mugs. Cruets filled with hair and facial lotions sit on the counter next to shaving mugs. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Owners or automobile shop employees offload new cars from a New York Central railroad boxcar. These cars are models of the Crow-Elkhart automobiles. A group of men and boys are gathered to help and watch the parade of autos. Two youths hang on the side of the boxcar, and another sits on top. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Henry Peitzmeyer’s threshing rig collapses a bridge in the northeast part of Colfax County. The photograph is dated 1910. A group of sightseers stand near the site of the accident. Some are in their Sunday-best clothes of suits, long dresses, and hats, while a couple men are dressed in work clothes to tackle the cleanup and removal of the wreckage. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

Plagues of grasshoppers, floods, blizzards, and droughts created hardship for the settlers and pioneers. Crops failed with the absence of rain until the fields were barren and open to fierce winds. Dust storms in the 1930s lifted tons of topsoil and blew them across counties and states. Here, a mountain of dust is collected against the side of a barn. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)

On the first of March every year, the road would be congested with people, wagons, and horses. It was referred to as “Moving Day,” when renters, whose lease or contract expired, packed up their belongings and headed for the proverbial greener pastures. Here, the road is lined with migrating families moving with hope of a better place to live. (Courtesy of Howells Historical Museum.)