IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCE 
253 
EARLY IOWA LOCALITY RECORDS. 
BY B. SHIMEK. 
Students of plant and animal distribution are naturally interested in exact 
geographic designation, and they frequently suffer inconvenience from the in- 
accuracy or misconception of locality names. Confusion in our western records 
sometimes arises because the earlier explorers worked in an unsettled wilderness 
in which accurate geographic designation was difficult or impossible, and again 
from the fact that names were often at first applied to larger areas than those 
to which the name is at present restricted. 
Some such cases have come under the writer’s notice recently in his effort 
to secure full records of Iowa plants and mollusks. TRe locality which at- 
tracted special attention is that which is designated as “Council Bluff,” or 
“Council Bluffs,” in various reports on plants, mollusks, insects, etc. This is 
the locality made memorable by the visit of Thomas Say, who spent parts 
of the years 1819 and 1820 at the Engineer Cantonment near Council Bluff, 
and who reported and described many species of mollusks, insects and 
vertebrates from this locality. Later, in 1839, the Nicollet Expedition visited 
the same locality and collected numerous plants which were submitted for 
determination to Dr. Torrey. 
Say’s “Council Bluff” is generally considered the same as the Council Bluffs, 
Iowa, of today, but this is clearly not correct. The present city of Council 
Bluffs, Iowa, is located on the east side of the Missouri river, and about 22 
miles above the mouth of the Platte river in Nebraska. Naturally the references 
to Council Bluff or Council Bluffs would suggest the Iowa locality, but there 
can be no question that the locality to which Say and others refer is on the 
western, or Nebraska, side of the Missouri river, and more than 20 miles above 
the present city of Council Bluffs. 
The name “Council Bluff” was originally applied to a locality at which 
Lewis and Clark held a council with the Ottoe and Missouri Indians, August 3, 
1804.* 
Referring to this locality in his valuable edition of these Journals, Thwaites 
makes the following statement:** 
“This is the origin of the name now applied to a city in Iowa opposite 
Omaha, Neb.; but Coues thinks — that the place of this council was higher up 
the river, on what was later the site of Ft. Calhoun, in the present Washington 
County, Nebraska. He also calls attention to the well known uncertainty 
and constant shifting of the Missouri’s channels, rendering it difficult to 
identify historic points.” 
This cautious statement might give the impression that it is not quite certain 
that Coues’ conclusion was right. The evidence that this point is some distance 
above the city of Council Bluffs, and that it is on the Nebraska side of the 
*See Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806. (In full and 
exactly as written.) Edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites, LLD., 1904, vol. I, p. 98 ; Coues, 
edition, vol. I, p. 66, 1893. 
**See volume I, p. 98 — footnote. 
