Rusco
Township and Peake
Rusco Township
Location - Second tier from top of Buffalo County, 3rd from west
North of Riverdale,
South of Loup Township which has Pleasanton in the southeast corner.
Prairie Hills Golf and Ski Club is located in the southeast corner of Rusco
Twp.
Highway 10 runs up the first section line west of the east boundary.
Description - The Loup River goes through the northern part of the
township and three creeks feed into it from the south.
Rural agricultural & pasture land.
Early settlers –
Settlement began in 1873 – E. M. Holly
1875 – Several
including A. H. & Jennie Peake
1876 – Several
including Warren Rusco
25 by 1880
Organized – April 1, 1884
Named for Warren
Rusco
Hub reported
in Nov 1890 all elected township officers. Rusco Twp included A. H. Peake,
assessor.
What was there – No towns
3 post offices
3 school districts
2 churches
2 cemeteries
Post Offices: South Loup, Riverview, and Peake.
South Loup, 1874
Northeast corner of township, south side
of the Loup.
Couple miles southwest of present day Pleasanton
Discontinued in 1877 and later restarted as Riverview.
Riverview, started in 1884
South side of the Loup, moved to the
north side.
Predecessor of the Pleasanton post office.
Peake
Post office opened in 1884
Jennie Peake was first postmaster.
Located on north edge of township, 4-4 ½
miles west of Pleasanton; 10 miles north and ½ mile west of Riverdale.
On mail route from Prairie Center to Loup City. Mail arrived two times a
week.
Originally a sod structure, serving 40
families.
1891 William Newell became postmaster, moved the post office to his home
about 3 miles south of original site.
1897 Ludwig Mueller became postmaster, moved it to his home, about a
mile west of Newell
Mail to Peake was delivered by horse and buggy (according to the April
1900 Hub)
Closed in 1907 when mail route went from Amherst to Pleasanton.
School Districts:
Dist. 32 - Peake
Dist. 67 - Mt. Zion or Vest
Dist. 100 - King.
All are now part of Pleasanton’s
R-105.
Churches & Cemeteries:
Church of Christ – located in the SE
¼ of Section 34. Active as early as 1893
Fairmont Cemetery – In May 1893, 2 acres was purchased for $25.00 for
use as a cemetery.
Still owned by the Church of Christ.
Peake Lutheran Church - officially
“St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod”
Also called Peake Lutheran and St.
Paul’s of Riverdale.
Organized in 1892.
First services and Sunday School were held in Dist. 55 school. (in
Riverdale twp)
Services were in German.
The congregation split and part joined the Iowa Synod, stayed at
Dist. 55.
The other part met in John Zwiener’s home
Reorganized in Nov. 1904 at the Dist. 100, King, schoolhouse.
Built in Section 30 in 1906.
Church had two chandeliers with each
holding four kerosene lamps
Heat by pot-bellied stove
Seating for 100
1932 the worship service was held in English followed by one in
German while the children had Sunday School in the parsonage.
German dropped in the late 1940’s.
Peak & Poole congregations declining in numbers, decided to join.
1955 the church from Poole and the Parsonage from the Peake church
were moved to a site on the south side of the Loup at Pleasanton and
became Grace Lutheran.
Peake
Lutheran Cemetery – Beside the church
Rusco Township Stories –
Post offices closed, schools consolidated,
no rural churches left, just 2 cemeteries remain
Stringtown area was a neighborhood
where several farm houses were close together.
An early settler claimed his 160 in the center of
a section. No one would want the 40 acre strips around it so he had a buffer
with no close neighbors and space to let his cattle graze.
[The 1889 plat map of Buffalo County shows what appears to be property lines
for a claim in the center of Section 4 of Rusco Township. The South Loup
River goes through the property west to east. There are, however, other land
owners named on all sides of him in that section.]
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