Council Bluffs, Iowa

Council Bluffs is a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States and is on the east bank of the Missouri River across from what is now the much larger city of Omaha, Nebraska. It was known until 1852 as Kanesville, Iowa — the historic starting point of the Mormon Trail and eventual northernmost anchor town of the other emigrant trails.

The population of Council Bluffs was 62,230 at the 2010 census. Along with neighboring Omaha to the west, Council Bluffs was part of the 60th-largest metropolitan area in the United States in 2010, with an estimated population of 865,350 residing in the eight counties of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area. Council Bluffs is more than a decade older than Omaha. The latter, founded in 1854 by Council Bluffs businessmen and speculators following the Kansas-Nebraska Act, has grown to be the significantly larger city.

History

1804–1843

Council Bluffs was named for an 1804 meeting of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with the Otoe tribe, which took place at Council Bluff, near present-day Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, 20 miles to the north. Council Bluffs became the generic name for the land on both sides of the Missouri River north of the mouth of the Platte River; the northwestern corner of Mills County, Iowa was then specifically called Council Bluffs.