Iowa is in the tallgrass prairie of the North American Great Plains, historically inhabited by speakers of Siouan languages. The area of Sioux City, Iowa was inhabited by Yankton Sioux when it was first reached by Spanish and French furtrappers in the 18th century. In 1803, during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, France sold a vast portion of central North America to the United States of America. This "Louisiana Purchase" was largely unexplored by white settlers. Jefferson sent out the Corps of Discovery, under Lewis and Clark, to scientifically document the territory. In 1804 the Lewis and Clark expedition traveled up the Missouri and set-up camp near what would become Sioux City, Iowa. On August 20, a member of the expedition, Sgt. Charles Floyd died of "bilous colic" and was buried on a bluff overlooking the river. At the time of Lewis and Clark, the Omaha tribe of Native Americans were present just downstream from this region, and the Yankton Sioux were upstream. William Thompson established a trading post near Floyd's Bluff in 1848, and had early ambitions for founding a city. However, Thompson's hopes were never realized; settlers further upriver, between the Floyd and Big Sioux rivers, met with more success.

Settlement and founding Theophile Bruguier, a French-Canadian fur trader, is considered the first white settler on land that would become Sioux City. According to one legend, he told his friend Chief War Eagle of the Yankton Sioux about a dream he had regarding a rich land where two rivers joined near a high bluff. War Eagle told him that he knew of this land, near the mouth of the Big Sioux River. In reality, Bruguier had already passed this place many times in his voyages between Fort Pierre in the Dakota Territory and St. Louis, Missouri as an agent for the American Fur Company. In 1849, Bruguier established his farm on this same land; this farm included log cabins and tipis used by the family of War Eagle. Bruguier claimed all the land from the mouth of the Big Sioux River east along the Missouri River to near the Floyd River. In 1852 he sold the land from Perry Creek east to the Floyd River to Joseph Leonais. At about that time, Bruguier encouraged James A. Jackson, a fur trade outfitter from Council Bluffs (then Kanesville), to come upriver to establish a trading post. Jackson, in turn, convinced his father-in-law, Dr. John K. Cook, of the area's potential as a future city; Cook, an English-born Oxford University-educated physician turned frontier surveyor, was most impressed by the location at the mouths of the Big Sioux and Floyd Rivers at the Missouri. In his official capacity as United States Federal Government surveyor, Dr. Cook established the little town of Sioux City in 1854, staking out its lots and streets. Joseph Leonais, who owned much of the land which would become the downtown area, sold it to Dr. Cook after much haggling for $3000. Within 3 years the new town had a population of 400 people and incorporated as a city.

Nineteenth century

The first steamboat arrived from St. Louis in June 1856, loaded with ready-framed houses and provisions.

The railroad first arrived in 1868. About that time a few small factories opened. In 1873, James Booge opened the first large-scale meatpacking plant and created a demand which ultimately led to the opening of the livestock yards ("stockyards") in 1884. The period from about 1880 to 1890 marked the most rapid and significant progress made thus far in Sioux City's development. In 1880 Sioux City had a population of 7,500.; in 1884, 15,514; in 1886, 22,358; in 1887, 30,842; and in 1890, 38,700. Street cars, water works, electric lights and other improvements appeared. Factories, jobbing houses, meatpacking plants, retail stores and railroads increasingly came on the scene. The city's building boom included an elevated railroad (the Sioux City Elevated Railway) and early "skyscrapers". These changes mirrored growth that was occurring nationwide, especially in the transition of small pioneer settlements to thriving urban centers. President Grover Cleveland visited in 1887, by then Fourth Street was the center of the business district.

Sioux City is also the birthplace of the Corn Palace, a temporary building made each year as part of the Corn Festival. The Sioux City Corn Palaces were large wooden buildings with corn cobs nailed to their walls. The first Corn Palace was built in 1887, and was designed by architect W.E. Loft. The Corn Palace became larger and grander every year. The last Sioux City Corn Palace, built in 1891, sprawled across the city's downtown area. The palace had three towers, one of which stretched 200 feet tall. It also had a large tunnel, which allowed traffic to pass right beneath its center.

But bad weather brought a poor turnout for the 1891 Corn Festival, as the building was unheated. The Great Floyd River Flood of 1892 drowned any further hopes for the festival, and Corn Palaces were never built in Sioux City again.

In May 1892, heavy rains caused the Floyd River to rise, sending a destructive wave of muddy water through the unprepared city. At least three thousand people were left homeless. The stockyards and railroad lines were all badly damaged, and a lumber yard caught fire. The final death toll from drowning was twenty-five, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

The nationwide Financial Panic of 1893 resulted in number of real estate investors and entrepreneurs in Sioux City losing great paper fortunes. Edwin Peters, the developer and promoter of Morningside, claimed to have lost $1.5 million, only to be left with a debt of $7,000.

In 1898, all units of the Iowa National Guard—the 49th, 50th, 51st and 52nd Infantry Regiments, as well as artillery and cavalry units—were called to active duty in the War with Spain. The 49th and 50th entrained for South Florida but did not reach Cuba. The 51st was sent to the Philippines and engaged in combat action there. The 52nd remained stateside.

Twentieth century

The beginning of the twentieth century saw a population of 33,000.

1900–1910

Floyd Monument In 1900, on a high bluff overlooking the Missouri River, construction began on the 100' tall Floyd Monument, a stone obelisk honoring the burial site of Sgt. Charles Floyd. Floyd died near here while exploring the region with the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804. The monument, which was completed in 1901, was later recognized by the U.S. Department of Interior as the First National Historic Landmark, in 1960.

John Peirce fraud In 1900, Sioux Cityans and the rest of the country were the victims of a fraud perpetrated by former Sioux City land speculator, developer, and (later) notorious wheeler-dealer John Peirce. Peirce was a colorful and flamboyant character, a decorated Union Army veteran wounded in the Civil War, and a major promoter during Sioux City's 19th-century boom years. Until fairly recently, Sioux City historians and civic promoters held Peirce in high esteem for his years of seeming dedication to the growth of Sioux City, especially of the North Side. More recent investigation has shown that in the end Peirce was a very clever scoundrel who actually got away with his crime. Like most other businessman, Peirce had been hurt very badly by the financial panic of 1893. While most of Sioux City's leading businessmen honorably spent years working and rebuilding to pay back their debts, Peirce began scheming for a way to bilk the public out of the funds he needed to effect his relocation to the west coast. In 1900, he initiated a nationwide lottery to dispose of his northside mansion (which later became the Sioux City Museum). About 40,000 tickets were sold at one dollar each. The drawing took place at the Union passenger depot on Christmas Eve of 1900. It was first announced that the winner was a jeweler from Vinton, Iowa. However, a few days later, it emerged that the winning ticket was actually held by a New York millionaire, William Barbour. (Peirce had owed a hefty financial debt to Mr. Barbour.) The abstract for the Peirce Mansion reveals that a warranty deed transferred title to Barbour nine days before the actual drawing and nineteen days before Barbour was publicly known to hold the winning lottery ticket. Barbour promptly sold the mansion to William Gordon, in exchange for bonds which were issued by the company operating the Combination Bridge. Peirce, a flamboyant figure to be sure, wrote an emotional goodbye to Sioux City in the newspaper before heading west. Peirce collected his money and disappeared from Sioux City forever.

Pelletier fire On December 23, 1904, Sioux City suffered one of its greatest calamities when a fire broke out in the basement of the Pelletier Department Store on the southwest corner of Fourth and Jackson Streets. The fire ignited when a store employee lit a match in a Christmas toy display area of the basement floor to ignite a gas jet to illuminate the display. The head of the match flew off and landed in mounds of cotton that had been used to simulate snow drifts. The room went up like a torch, and the fire quickly spread throughout the multi-story building. The Sioux City Fire Department was neither manned nor equipped to suppress a rapidly spreading high-rise fire, whipped by wind gusts that quickly spread the flames to neighboring buildings. Two and a half blocks of the downtown district were gutted by fire. Only one person died in the catastrophe, but the loss in property was in the millions of dollars. Sioux City business investors lost little time in rebuilding the core business district.Disasters | Sioux City History

1911–1920

Free speech fight In the winter of 1914, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) chose Sioux City as the site of one of its many free speech fights. The goal was to organize both industrial and agricultural farm laborers into one big union to pressure management for better wages and shorter hours. Some community leaders—notably the enlightened Pastor and future Populist Republican Mayor Wallace Mertin Short—strongly defended the rights of the workers to exercise free speech, while not endorsing or condoning the radical and often violent tactics of the IWW. As in all of the IWW free speech fights of that era, once word of such a demonstration went out over the "bush telegraph," thousands upon thousands of unemployed men made their way into the city by foot or on freight cars. The center of activity was in the 800 block of Fourth Street, where Sioux City Police on horseback, assisted by Iowa National Guardsmen, engaged in skirmishing. Hundreds of unemployed laborers were arrested until, jails full, city fathers bodily expelled them aboard freight cars, which delivered them to isolated locations outside the city.

First World War

When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Iowa had 3 National Guard regiments, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The 3rd Iowa was federalized immediately as the new 168th Infantry Regiment and became part of the new 42nd "Rainbow" Division made up of guard troops from 26 states. Organized and trained at Camp Mills, New York, the 42nd was the first American combat division to reach the front lines in France. After extensive advanced combat training under supervision of French officers for a period of 90 days, the 168th entered the front lines in February 1918. Many of the members of Company L were from Sioux City, Northwest Iowa and Southeast South Dakota.