I have not found a history of Jones County (Has anyone else seen one?), but I did find a few snippets in "The WPA Guide to 1930's Iowa", a WPA project published during the Great Depression and recently republished. I thought some of you might be interested in a couple of exerpts -- perhaps even recognize a name. Cascade ... on the banks of the North Fork of the Maquoketa River, was named for the cascades in the river. This village was the home of Lyman Dillon [the man who plowed a furrow to mark the route for the Old Military Road, from Dubuque to Iowa City]. Early settlers of Cascade, predominantly of Irish ancestry -- a few of their descendants here still speak Gaelic -- migrated from the East and attempted to utilize the natural waterfall here as a source of power. Because the dam they built was small and railroad facilities were inadequate, the town did not become the industrial center its founders planned.... Following 1849, the influx of Irish and German farmers, who developed the fertile valley into a rich agricultural region, shifted the interests of the community to agrarian rather than to industrial pursuits. "Red" Faber (1888), of Cascade, was pitcher for the victorious Chicago White Sox baseball team in the World Series games with the New York Giants in 1917. Faber won three games -- a record equalled but never broken. Monticello ... is on the west bank of the Maquoketa River. On an autumn day, three years before the Old Military Road was established, the first settler, Daniel Varvel of Kentucky, came to the mouth of Kitty Creek. The hillsides were splashed with crimson and ellow, and westward the fertile prairies extended gar into the distance. Varvel built his home here, and for years the cabin was a landmark in Jones County. The wayfaring traveler stopped there for the night; it also served as post office, and as headquarters for the min who laid out the Military Road, begun in 1839. Other cabins and a hotel were built, and the settlement was called Monticello.