Springdale is a small unincorporated community

Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 in Cedar County

Cedar County, Iowa

-2010 census:The 2010 census recorded a population of 13,956 in the county, with a population density of . There were 8,064 housing units, of which 7,511 were occupied.-2000 census:...

, Iowa

Iowa

Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Historically, the town was predominantly settled by Quakers, and was a way-station in the Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...

. Its most famous residents were the militant abolitionist John Brown

John Brown (abolitionist)

John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...

, who resided at John H. Painter's house near Springdale while making preparations for the raid on Harpers Ferry, and Edwin and Barclay Coppock

Barclay Coppock

Edwin Coppock, Barclay's brother, redirects here.Barclay Coppock was a follower of John Brown and a Union Army soldier in the American Civil War. Along with his brother Edwin Coppock , he participated in Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry...

, local youths who participated with Brown during the raid. Springdale was also the birthplace of Lawrie Tatum

Lawrie Tatum

Lawrie Tatum was a Quaker who was best known as an Indian Agent to the Kiowa and Comanche tribes at Fort Sill agency in Indian Territory....

, a frontier Indian agent and the legal guardian of future President Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...

. No downtown business district remains in Springdale, it is a cluster of houses with a United Methodist church.

External links

• http://iagenweb.org/history/oibg/igb27to31.htm
• http://iagenweb.org/history/qoi/QOIPt1Chp7.htm