This week in Council Bluffs
- Women’s volleyball: Indian Hills Community College vs. Iowa Western
Fri, Oct 30 · 12 AM · Reiver Arena
About Council Bluffs
Council Bluffs takes its name from a riverside bluff where Lewis and Clark sat down with Otoe and Missouria leaders in the summer of 1804. In the 1840s Latter-day Saints settled here and called the town Kanesville, and for a few busy years it was where wagon trains outfitted before heading west on the Mormon Trail. In 1863 President Lincoln fixed the eastern start of the transcontinental railroad here, and the Union Pacific bridge across the Missouri tied the town to the line in 1872, making Council Bluffs one of the country's big rail hubs. The Squirrel Cage Jail of 1885, with its rotating three-story cell block, and the giant Golden Spike raised in 1939 at the railroad's Mile 0 still tell that story. Today families gather in Bayliss Park downtown around the Wellspring fountain and the domed Oculus pavilion, with the Loess Hills rising behind the town and Omaha just across the river.