General Grenville M. Dodge

Taken from The Daily Nonpareil's "Celebration 150," written by Mary Alice McClure
General Grenville M. Dodge was instrumental in the growth not only of our community, but our nation. Dodge made his youthful dream of building a railroad across the country a reality, and in its wake he laid out plans for towns that brought people and other railroads to network the nation, making them all neighbors.
It has been written of Dodge by the restoration consultant for the Dodge House, "You will be aware of a way of life that is all but vanished. You may also be aware of a seeming presence of a man of small physical statue whose enormous capacity for living made him truly larger than life."
The raw courage of a boy born into a family so poor they couldn't make ends meet, Dodge's genius and tenacity took him from poverty in Danvers, Massachusetts, to become a wealthy man in Council Bluffs.
He was a man who was a friend to presidents, statesmen, financial tycoons and leaders of states and of our nation. A maverick who was also a manipulator, Dodge started laying track for the Eastern Railroad at age 14. he was educated in academies and graduated at age nineteen from Norwich University in Vermont.
Dodge started West by joining the engineer corps of the Illinois Central Railroad as an axe man, doing surveying. It was during this time in Peru, Illinois, that he met the lovely Ruth Ann Brown, who would later become his wife. Although she played piano, enjoyed opera and poetry, Brown could ride a horse and shoot a gun as well as Dodge.
The Gold Rush in California presented the need for a railroad to transport goods and services to those who had pushed on to that territory via wagon trains. It became Dodge's dream to build that railroad.
His next move westward was surveying the trans-Iowa route of the proposed Mississippi and Missouri Railroad, which came to be known as the Rock Island. He landed in Council Bluffs in 1853 and recognized it as a permanent settlement ready for business exploitation, and he welcomed the excitement. it is as though Dodge and the nation grew side by side from this point in history until his death in 1916.
Brown and Dodge were married in 1854. He brought not only his wife, but his parents, brother and sister to this area. Nathan, the brother, managed many of Dodge's business ventures and became one of Council Bluffs' most prominent citizens.
A daughter, Lettie, was born in 1855 to Dodge and his wife in a cabin in Council Bluffs. Their second daughter, Eleanor, whom they called Ella, was born in 1858.
Dodge's genius found him in many areas of the money game. Before the financial panic of 1857, from which he suffered no great losses, Dodge and his partner, John T. Baldwin, founded the Council Bluffs Savings Bank (now Firstar Bank). Dodge lobbied the Iowa Legislature to promote the railroad, which would run on his land.
Abraham Lincoln, then an attorney for the Rock Island Railroad, came to Council Bluffs in August 1859 to deliver a campaign speech and examine a tract of land he held as security for a loan. If he were elected president, the final choice for the route of the continental railroad would be his.
Dodge talked with Lincoln for more than two hours at a local hotel and then Lincoln was taken to a bluff now memorialized with the Lincoln Monument.
Dodge's talent as a military commander during the Civil War indicated he was a good leader. His most unusual service was that of organizing a spy system for Gen. Grant's Northern armies. He also reconstructed railroads destroyed in the war. The latter command gave him military and political friendships of value to his future ventures.
General Dodge suffered a sever head wound while in Atlanta in August 1864. He was brought to Council Bluffs to recover. After some months, he was reassigned to clear the plains of Indians who were murdering settlers. He established headquarters at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1865 and his family joined him. Another daughter, Anne, was born in Kansas in March 1866.
Dodge resigned his commission in 1866 and was elected to Congress from Iowa's 5th District. He learned the art of lobbying and for the rest of his life did so on behalf of veterans and the railroads. Finding politics not to his liking, Dodge did not seek another term.
The Union Pacific Railroad was under way before Dodge became its chief engineer. He devoted four years of his life to building his "greatest accomplishment," as he referred to the railroad.
By 1870, Dodge was one of the richest men in Iowa. The war settled, his railroad built and finances stable, he decided to settle permanently in Council Bluffs, near his family. At age 39, he moved the family into the lavish home he had built for them at 605 Third Street.
Lettie married Robert E. Montgomery in 1874. He worked with Dodge in land sales to finance railroads. They divorced in 1908.
Ella was married in 1880 to Frank E. Pusey, who came from a prominent local family. Anne never married.
Upon Dodge's death in 1916, he left a trust to be activated twenty-one years after the death of his grandchildren. It was to be used for charities. In 1987 it was disclosed at $1 million. More than $400,000 has since been distributed and the fund is currently valued at $1,600,000 [as of June 1996].
While Dodge was off fighting the war and helping build a nation with towns and railroads to link tose towns, Nathan was working to build up the metro area through finance and real estate. The fourth and fifth generations of Nathan's family are still carrying on that tradition.
Council Bluffs is graced with reminders of Grenville Dodge's family - the Dodge House museum and Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial, The Black Angel. Many know the story of Ruth Anne's dream that prompted daughters Ella and Anne to commission Daniel Chester French to sculpt the angel.