HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION IOWA was the sixteenth Commonwealth to be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original thirteen States. The exact date of admission was December twenty-eighth, one thousand eight hundred and forty-six seventy years after the Declaration of Independence. There is nothing strikingly dramatic in the early history of Iowa. The development from a community of squatters into a Territory and then into a State, though rapid, was the normal and sane evolution of a poli society. This fact gives to history an abiding interest a lasting significance. Than I there are few better illustrat of the growth of an Amer Commonwealth. As a part of the Provinc Louisiana, the Iowa country acquired by the United State 1803. Thus the purchase Louisiana may be regarded the starting point in the hist of Iowa. In 1804 the I country was included in the I trict of Louisiana. In 1805 District of Louisiana was org ized as the Territory of Lou |