Colonel Bayliss would find the situation on the Missouri ripe for profit amidst the turbulent period of anarchy that followed the departure of the Mormons, along with most any evidence of local legal propriety. Reportedly, half the log cabins in town were up for sale and the low prices probably only grew lower as largely pious Mormon families were replaced by low-down desperados, gamblers, con-men, and sidewinders of even worse sorts. Surely a situation such as this seemed far more profitable to the Colonel than a risky venture across the continent to the California mines. As Kanesville’s population declined by several thousand people over that summer, Colonel Bayliss bought out Mormon Henry Miller’s 400 acre claim near the mouth of Miller’s Hollow for a reputed $250. During that fall of 1852, Kanesville was renamed Council Bluffs City by the general proclamation of the 900 or so folks still left, including a very ambitious Colonel Samuel S. Bayliss.

By early 1853 Council Bluffs City had become Council Bluffs. In partial response to the local lawlessness, elections were held that April and merchant Cornelius Voorhis was elected the first Mayor of Council Bluffs. Voorhis had settled in Kanesville in 1848 and was a member of the notorious anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic American Party, better known as the “Know-Nothings”. The first elected Council Bluffs Aldermen included Colonel Sam Bayliss. 

Some of the council’s first actions were to appoint Alfred Jones as City Surveyor, Isaac Beebe as Street Supervisor, and G.A. Robinson as Chief of the Fire Company and to establish a city jail in May 1853. Then, to keep some semblance of peace, the city sanctioned a Vigilance Committee to enforce law and order by any means necessary. In fact, the first city charter called for a whole variety of improvements, including limiting local sales of gunpowder, but there was no money to pay for any of it since the city couldn’t legally tax land squatter titles. Instead of property taxes, the entire city budget came from licensing the several flourishing saloons and gambling halls. Their actions only brought in a paltry $280. 

On June 15, 1853 [Sam Bayliss] laid out his First Addition to the city plat. At the same time, he donated some of the land for a courthouse and “publick square”. Unlike the older parts of town, the blocks in Bayliss’ First Addition were surveyed with some sense of regularity, and lot lines were not hemmed in by steep bluffs on one side and flood-prone creek bottom on the other. In the process, Bayliss left Broadway with a distinctive angle between Bancroft (now 4th) and Baldwin (now 8th) Streets.

The Colonel was also on hand in July 1853 to help organize the Council Bluffs & Nebraska Ferry Company. Meanwhile, by the end of the year Colonel Bayliss had become treasurer of the Omaha City Company, the speculative offshoot of the increasingly profitable Council Bluffs & Nebraska Ferry Company. Colonel Sam Bayliss remained in the forefront of local progress with the organization of the Council Bluffs & Saint Joe Railroad in 1858.

In the summer of 1859, a lanky “Sucker” from Illinois got off the steamboat at the Council Point Landing and rode the omnibus northeast into Council Bluffs. This, of course, was lawyer, railroad lobbyist, and failed political candidate Abraham Lincoln who registered at the Colonel’s Pacific House on August 12. The primary reason for Lincoln’s visit was to examine 160 acres of land on the West End of Council Bluffs that he had received as collateral on a defaulted loan from Norman Judd, attorney of the bankrupt Mississippi & Missouri River Railroad. On one of the expansive porches of the Pacific House the very shrewd and ambitious Lincoln questioned railroad surveyor Grenville Dodge about the most feasible route for a transcontinental railroad. The monumental visit lasted just two days, but three years later Lincoln selected Council Bluffs as the eastern terminus of the transcontinental railroad.

The tumultuous Civil War and construction of the Union Pacific Railroad resulted in a variety of changes in Council Bluffs. Local progress after 1865 proved quite different than the prosperous years Colonel Bayliss had enjoyed throughout the 1850’s. While the city he had helped establish changed around him, Colonel Bayliss suffered a further indignity in 1866 when the county purchased three lots at Buckingham and Pearl Streets for a new courthouse while the lot Bayliss had donated remained a weed patch. Since the vacant lot had been given for a specific purpose, Colonel Bayliss believed that it should revert back to him and he spent the remainder of his years waging legal battles to regain his rightful title to the land. After the Colonel’s death his widow moved to Nebraska City where she continued the lawsuit over the vacant lot in the heart of Council Bluffs. Finally in 1876 a Council Bluffs judge finally ruled against her claim concerning the land where a courthouse was never built. 

In spite of his local difficulties, Bayliss added a three-story addition to his Pacific House in 1869. The addition burned during the winter of 1871 but was rebuilt two years later. Colonel Bayliss also attempted to establish himself in the mercantile business although his financial situation continued to plummet. The Colonel’s health apparently began to fail at the same rate as his riches and he “complained of frequent sickness to his stomach” and was unable to keep much food down. After an “illness of several weeks,” 57-year-old Samuel S. Bayliss died at four in the morning on April 25, 1874. 

While the city he had helped establish changed around him, Colonel Bayliss suffered a further indignity in 1866 when the county purchased three lots at Buckingham and Pearl Streets for a new courthouse while the lot Bayliss had donated remained a weed patch. Since the vacant lot had been given for a specific purpose, Colonel Bayliss believed that it should revert back to him and he spent the remainder of his years waging legal battles to regain his rightful title to the land. After the Colonel’s death his widow moved to Nebraska City where she continued the lawsuit over the vacant lot in the heart of Council Bluffs. Finally in 1876 a Council Bluffs judge finally ruled against her claim concerning the land where a courthouse was never built. 

Though his buildings are no longer standing, the continuing legacy of Colonel Samuel S. Bayliss can be readily seen in the continued growth of the ferry company’s speculative venture of Omaha while people stroll through Bayliss Park, and automobiles still regularly make a curious jog on West Broadway between 4th and 8th Streets although few people today probably ever question why.

(Photos courtesy of the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County.  Story by Ryan Roenfeld, edited for inclusion here by Heather Karstens).