DICKINSON COUNTY-LOCATION
FEATURES THE LAKES-INDIANS OF IOWA REP-
RESENT TWO DISTINCT RACES-ALGONQUINS AND
DACOTAHS-ALGONQUIN TRIBES, SACS AND FOXES,
POTTAWATTAMIES, ILLINOIS AND MUSCATINES—
DACOTAH TRIBES, IOWAS, OMAHAS, WINNEBAGOS
AND SIOUX-THE NEUTRAL LINE-THE NEUTRAL
GROUND-TREATIES-THE TREATY FOR THE PUR-
CHASE OF NORTHWESTERN IOWA.
ICKINSON COUNTY is the third county in the state from the west line and in the north tier of counties bordering on the Minnesota line. It is twenty-four miles in length cast and west, and nearly seventeen miles in width north and south, and therefore embraces an area of about four hundred square miles, about eight per cent of which is covered with lakes.
It is the most elevated county in the state as it lies on the "height of land" or great water shed between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and is drained by the upper branches of both the upper Des Moines and Little Sioux Rivers, which empty respectively into each of the before named streams. Its altitude is about seventeen hundred feet above tide water. The marked physical feature which distinguishes Dickinson from the other counties of northwestern Iowa is her numerous lakes. First and last, many descriptions of these lakes have been written up and published, but by far the most interesting and readable is that contained in Prof. T. H. MacBride's report on the geology of Dickinson and Osceola Counties. Writing on this subject he says: