According to The Gem, the Jewell Centennial book of 1981, Dr. William Winslow of Maine, and a veteran of the War of 1812, received a grant of land signed by President Franklin Pierce in 1855.   The doctor sold the land to a Cornelius Hadden in 1856.   This Wisconsin resident probably sold the warranty deed land to the David Talcut Jewell family of Wisconsin, who came to the Lakins Grove area north and east of town in 1877.   Stand on the railroad track where it crosses Highway 69 and look north.   The Jewell property was on the left and stayed north of Lyon Street or D-56, the blacktop road headed west to today's Stanhope.   David Jewell's first home eventually became the clubhouse of Jewell Golf and Country Club.   The original plot of ground contained 160 acres.   The durrent driveway to the golf course was the lane to the Jewell house.   The low spot on the northeast corner of the course was cut by a creek and was used for pasture.   The Jewell family still has (in 2006) relatives in the area.

     David Talcut Jewell was born to Joseph H. and Hannah Jewell on September 15, 1835 at Edinburgh, Saratoga County in New York.   He married Drucilla Reinhart in Neenah, Wisconsin on November 8, 1860.   The name Reinhart at times is spelled Rinehart.   This is where the east-west street Reinhart in northwest Jewell got its name.   David T. Jewell died November 12, 1897.   The Jewells had nine children:

Harriet was born in 1862; married George Claflin; died in 1958; and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Jewell.

Lydia was born in 1864 and died 42 days later.

Chester was born in 1866; married Abigail Carter; lived in Wisconsin; and died in 1917.

Ida was born in 1869; married a cousin John Jewell (he was the son of Leonard Jewell, David Jewell's brother).

Emma was born in 1871 and died in September of 1872.

Jennie was born in 1874; married Alva Headley; and is buried in Jewell.

John Wilburn Jewell was born in 1878; married Nettie Pinckney of Jewell; died in 1939; and is buried in Jewell.

Lula Belle Jewell was born in 1881; married Albert Cunard; and lived in Algona.

David Bertice Jewell was born in 1883; married Edna Perry in February 1908; died and is buried in Jewell.

     By 1918 the Jewell land was owned by David Bertice Jewell.   David Bertice Jewell was the father of Robert Winfied Jewell, the father of Robert Edward Jewell who is currently (in 2006) of 301 Homer-Washington Street of rural Webster City, Iowa.   Robert Edward Jewell gained his middle name from his mother's greatgrandmother's husband, Edward Perry.   Edward Perry is buried in Radcliffe.   Edna Perry and Mrs. David Bertice Jewell lived at 415 Main Street in Jewell, now the home of Terry Schrandt.   Robert Winfield Jewell, Robert Edward Jewell's father and mother, lived at 415 Collins Street, the property now housed by Rick and Mary Embrey.

     According to Robert Jewell, "in the former David T. Jewell home there was a large square beam that held up the south side of the house.   After getting permission from the golf course personnel, I went down into the basement and found that large beam.   Carved on the wood was David T. Jewell.   After being assured of being able to gtet the beam during demolition, I showed up and watched the house being torn down.   Unfortunately, on that cold and nasty day the crew got to the beam and quit.   The beam was relegated to the trash and I never saw it again."

     After David Bertice Jewell left the farm, he and his family lived at 238 Main Street, the current residence of Dave and Brenda Mittlestadt.   Out back of the house were a big barn and a huge tree on which David had a block and tackle.   One day when Robert E. and his cousins were playing, they would take turns lifting each other up with the block and tackle to a hight of 10 to 12 feet.   During Robert's turn up the tree, Grandma hollered, "Dinner is ready" and I made one mighty fast landing.

Thanks to Robert E. Jewell for his kind assistance.   According to the best information, there are no more male descendants of David T. Jewell, the founder of the town.
 

     There was no unclaimed land just waiting for the first buyers, for it was already owned by early county settlers, speculators or holders of military grants for service in the War of 1812, the Mexican American War, or even the Civil War.   Original Jewell consisted of hastily thrown together sheds and shanties that either lined the east-west Main Street, (now Jewell Street) or sat to the north or south along Second, Third or Fourth Streets.   That original town began because there was a railroad to pierce the area and with it, the potential for profit and settlement.   David Jewell platted the new town in 1880.   Here business lots sold for $100 each, and were 25 feet wide by 130 feet deep.   Residential lots were 50 feet wide and sold for $25.   The town was ready for the railroad.

     In the agreement made by David Jewell with the Toledo and North Western Railroad of June 11, 1880, land necessary for a depot, sidings, switches, shops, roundhouse, stockyards and land necessary to form a junction would be made available.   By December 1880, the Toledo & Northwestern had completed a line from Tama to Webster City and started a second line west to upcoming Stanhope and Stratford; thus the junction.   At the turn of the century David Jewell's portion of town was practically deserted.   Often referred to as Dog Town, the northwest corner of twon has seen a revival, expecially since the centennial year of 1981 with a number of new houses built in the original Jewell.   Reinhart Street even had to be reopened to accommodate several of the new houses.

     Buy studying a map of the town, the various additions that added to its size can be appreciated.   The corporate limits of the town were expanded by a vote of 79 for and 17 against in February of 1897.   Those additional limits enclose four sections of land within the city, with the town itself occupying about a square mile at the center of the common corners right where the railroad track crosses north Main Street.
   

     The earliest railroad effort in the area was in 1874 when a narrow gauge rail line (3 feet between the rails) had been completed from Des Moines to Ames.   First known as the Iowa and Minnesota, then the Des Moines and Minnesota, the line met the standard gauge (4 feet and eight and one-half inches between the rails) east-west line in Ames.   Under the presidency of James Callanan, a prominent Des Moines banker and real estate agent, the narrow gauge was finally known as the Des Moines and Minneapolis Railroad and was headed for some points north.   For any settlement that hoped for access to markets, a railroad beame a necessity.   Callanan started his railroad north.   Early in 1877 an election was held in Lafayette Township of Story County for a five percent tax to pull the Des Moines and Minneapolis to Story City.   By the spring of 1877, the four southeast townships of Hamilton County (Ellsworth Township, Lincoln Township, Lyon Township, and Scott Township) did likewise, but the monies would have been made available only if the railroad had actually been constructed and operated to within a mile of those townships by December 1 of 1878.   Work began on the narrow gauge line toward a point that matched that location; a town was laid out on April 19,1878 and humbly named Callanan.   But the future of Callanan lay not there, but to two new towns about to make their debut.

     As the railroad building fever reached a frenzy, the companies began to build extensions throughout the state.   The railroads wanted to capitalize on the investments, so about every seven miles a depot would be erected, a siding laid down, and a town would materialize around the new hoped for connection to the outside world.   The railroads also built lines solely to claim an area and to discourage incursion by competitors.   The Cedar Rapids and Missouri, now the Chicago and North Western Railroad did just that.   Through a maze of interconnected drectorships, new railroad companies came into existence and just as quickly disappeared.   One new line, the Toledo and North Western Company of Tama, proposed building a line north and west of Tama into the yet unconnected Iowa lands towards Sioux City.   On May 22, 1880 the Toledo and North Western Railroad propsed building a line from Tama City to northwest Iowa and on into Minnesota if they, too, could win tax incentives and real estate bargains along the way.   With remarkable fervor the Toledo and North Western Railroad completed an 80.39 mile line from Toledo to Webster City and ran its first passenger train between the two cities on December 6, 1880.   When the line was constructed, it passed west through newly developed Hubbard, Radcliffe, a new Ellsworth, and through David Jewell enticements of land for depots, shops and yards.   This rapid development in from the east brought a stirring of activity in little towns at the end of the narrow gauge.   It was clear the new railroad missed the existing town to the southeast, Callanan.   Big money could await those who rose to take advantage of this new town: John R. and Jane R. King of Callanan came to the area for profit.

     With money from his grain and saloon businesses in Callanan from 1878 until 1881, John R. King and his wife Jane bought up what property they believed would be the site of the new town along the Toledo and North Western.   With his money he persuaded the railroad to build a depot on his land south of the tracks, applied for a post office to be in his part of town south of the tracks, and put his lots south of the tracks up for sale.   To make more money, King platted his lots at 22 feet in width and 120 feet in depth.   King's Main Street shrank to 80 feet wide, rather than maintain the 100 foot width in Jewell's town.   From the Jewell family acccount, there never was any animosity between the Jewells and the Kings.   The Kings made the money but the name Jewell stuck as the new entity was labled Jewell's Junction of Jewell Juntion.   Once the railroad had arrived and businesses began to build on King's land, the original town began to move to the new Main Street, today's north-south street through Jewell.   David Jewell and his wife were buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Jewell.   King's legacy remains through a scholarship fund for local students known as the Jane R. King fund.
 

     On the new Main Street south of the tracks, building resembled those of original Jewell.   The were one or two story wood framed structures, complete with false fronts to give the illusion of prosperity, height and amazement to new arrivals.   The first brick faced buildings date to the period of 1896 to 1908.   The State Bank of Jewell on the southeast corner of King and Main put one of the very first bricks up in 1896.   It is today on the JADE Foundation refurbish list, complete with its dirt basement floor.   Frank Snyder either set aside the lengthy wooden structure, while a brick store on the southwest corner of Main and King Streets was built as the replacement or had the wooden structure cut in half or moved.   Either way, the lengthy wooden building still exists, though in two parts as residences side by side at 523 and 527 Blaine Street.   Dr Lewis added a one-story doctor's office three lots to the south of the Snyder store.

     Oil lamps did light the Main Street of Jewell from 1895 until 1905.   Gas lamps replaced oil until about 1910 when electricity began to illuminate the night streets.   Concrete sidewalks replaced wood along Main Street by 1908 and along residential streets during the years following.   Buildings along Main Street experienced a renaissance during the teens, the first decade of the 1900s.   Wooden and tired buildings were periodically torn down and replaced with more substantial brick permanence.   For instance, the south livery stable, located where Wendell Frette's barbershop greets customers in 2006, was replaced by the jewelry store of M. H. Porter in 1912.   The State Bank of Jewell moved across the street into its new white glazed building in 1911.   Today home to Chuck and Sandy Deppe and the Leo and Jackie Reiter Cabinet shop, the building remains a great link to the early face of Jewell.   Once the First National Bank moved into its new brick building on the northwest corner of King and Main, much of Jewell had gone through its initial renaissance in 1911.

     Of course, the Depression years hit Jewell as it did most towns.   The war years kept some businesses alive as did traffic on US 69, just as this busy and friendly scene did in Rushings Super Valu.   When the Interstate building phase began in the area in 1966, cafe began to close, not as many gasoline stations nor service ships were needed, and with the traffic slowdown so, too, came a Main Street slowdown.   To combat the recession on Main Street, the Jewell Area Development Enterprise held its first meeting on November 30, 1981 in the Gem Cafe.   During the past 25 years, much good on Main Street can be attributed to the efforts of JADE to stimulate revitalization and a modern renaissance of a number of buildings.   Though many residents work in Webster City or Ames, the expansion of W&G Marketing, the new Pella Corporation factory in Story City, the large hog industry in the area, and the brand new Broin Horizon Ethanol Plant (now known as POET) at the north edge of town, many folks can continue to live in Jewell and work in nearby facilities.   So, too, the steady and healthy size of the South Hamilton Community Schools continues to provide a sound education foundation for the children of Jewell.

     Even after 125 years, Jewell remains "A Gem in a Friendly Setting."