Following the urging of Horace Greeley to “Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country,” Josiah Bushnell Grinnell established a town between the Iowa and Skunk rivers in 1854. Grinnell, a congressman, abolitionist and Congregational clergyman, lost his pastorate in Washington, D.C., after an antislavery sermon. In 1859 Grinnell donated land for Grinnell College, founded by Congregational missionaries from New England. Learn More...