. An illustrated history of the counties of Rock and Pipestone, Minnesota. ed was taken as a liomestead in1871 by John P. Steen. A brother, OleP. Steen, filed a homestead claim to thequarter section adjoining the year be-fore, and it was in hcmor of these twopioneers that the village was given itsIMMiiiancnt name. The last few years ol the eighties wit-nessed the fonndiiig id tliicc towns inMdithcrn Rock county as a direct resultof the i-onstruction of two new lines ofraih-oad. the Illinois Central and the Sioux-City & Northern. Included in this num-hiT was Steen. or Virginia, as it wasorigina
. An illustrated history of the counties of Rock and Pipestone, Minnesota. ed was taken as a liomestead in1871 by John P. Steen. A brother, OleP. Steen, filed a homestead claim to thequarter section adjoining the year be-fore, and it was in hcmor of these twopioneers that the village was given itsIMMiiiancnt name. The last few years ol the eighties wit-nessed the fonndiiig id tliicc towns inMdithcrn Rock county as a direct resultof the i-onstruction of two new lines ofraih-oad. the Illinois Central and the Sioux-City & Northern. Included in this num-hiT was Steen. or Virginia, as it wasoriginally known, on the Illinois Cential,which commenced liiyiiig inils lui the ex-tension fiom l\ocl< |ii(ls to Sioux Falls as Virginia and was known as such for a num-ber of years. The name of the station was thenmade to agree with that of the postoffice. Thelast mention of tlie town as Virginia in the lo-cal press was mole in thi summer of 1^ InJuly of that vear reference was made to thetown of Steen. and Virginia. Rock county, be-came an incident of SCENES AT STEEN HISTORY OF nOf!K COTTNTY. 207 in September, 1887. The station of Bruce,seven miles to the west in Martin town-ship, was the first of these to be located,the site being selected in December. Early in the year 1888 the Illinois Cen-tral authorities announced their intentionto plat and develop a town on the line be-tween Bruce and Rock Rapids, in Clin-ton township. A number of the residentsof that precinct at once became interestedin the project and lent their assistancein its furtherance. It was the offer ofJohn r. Steen to donate twenty acres ofIlls homestead for townsite jnirposes thatinfluenced the railroad company to lo-cate the proposed station on his land. The track-laying on the extension wascompleted so as to permit the operationof the first passenger train on June 2,1888. In the course of the same monththe townsite of Virginia was surveyed byJ. F. Whalcn. The plat, made to com-prise thirteen
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