This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: STURGIS, MILLER, ADAMS Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Vk.2ADE/137.575.1 Message Board Post: According to the booklet, Sturgis was one of the first settlers in what is now Cedar Falls. The original name for the community was "Sturgis Falls". Here are two excerpts from the booklet. There is a lengthly description of how beautiful the area was when it was first settled that is too long to post here. "The first permanent white settler was Wm. Sturgis who came in the spring of 1845, from Michigan and built a cabin near the present site of the ice house. Mr. Sturgis was a brother of the late Mrs. Hannah Miller, and uncle of Frank B. Miller. He built his cabin on the bank of the river, where prarie and timber met." "That fall, Erasmus Adams and family came and built a cabin in the woods on Dry Run. Attracted no doubt by the springs at that point which from time immemorial have poured forth a never failing supply of pure cold water. Both Sturgis and Adams broke up small farms and Sturgis Falls was born. Later the name was changed to Cedar Falls. Just as it takes two points to make a straight line so it took two families to make a town. By late fall there were five families comprising fourteen people in Black Hawk county."