The oil painting by Twyla V. Gilkey, titled Louisa County, depicts the history of Louisa (Lo-EYE-zah) County, Iowa, in nine segments. She painted it during 1967-68. Following is her description with some updates in italics.
   In the painting of our beloved Louisa County, I have chosen to show a frightened but determined 15-year-old girl defending her security and her family, rather than to tell the gun-smoke saga that made her a heroine. Louisa Massey is painted on a map of Louisa County. Dimmed by the passage of years are places and events that should be remembered as part of the rich heritage belonging to this area.
   (1) The eight Hopewellian Mounds that skirt the river at Toolesboro, built by a highly cultured people long before the birth of Christ.
   (2) The debarkation of Joliet and Marquette from the Indian village they found at the present site of Toolesboro in June 1673. As part of the farewell ceremony, the chief of the village gave his 11-year old son to Marquette as a slave. The ceremony lasted until three in the afternoon. (More recently, archeologists have come to believe that Marquette and Joliet stopped further south in what is now Clark County, Mo., not Louisa County. Our historians believe the pendulum will someday swing back in Louisa County's favor.)
   (3 ) In 1832 at a site near Toolesboro, Chief Keokuk made his famous and impassioned speech to the assembled warriors of the Sac tribes led by chiefs Wapello and Poweshiek. As a result of this event, the Sac refused the plea of Black Hawk that they join him in the Black Hawk War, which decision opened up this area to settlement by the whites.
   (4) The old brick courthouse built in 1840 at Wapello, the seat of law and order.
   (5) A "stern-wheeler" built by William Gelatt and used on the Iowa River. The "Luckett" had hinged smokestacks, which could be folded down to go under a bridge.
   (6) The Todd House to which William Todd, one of the county's early ferrymen, brought his bride, Lucinda Wheelock Bliven, in 1840. The house still stands on the bank of the Iowa River. (The Todd House was dismantled in the 1980s.)
   (7) Osceola - The rocky promontory north and west of the site of the Todd House where tattered remnants of Indian families were still seen coming to honor the graves of their ancestors as late as 1893.
   (8) "Old Number 9" the first railroad engine to cross the Mississippi River into Louisa County.
   (9) Col. Wesley Garner and his friend Mr. Samuel Helmick on their way to an early session of the Iowa Legislature in Iowa City. Both served as clerks to this body and were recommended for this work by Judge Francis Springer. Garner and Helmick, unable to get other transportation so far, bought a horse in partnership and rode up the territorial road alternating walking and riding horseback. The tin box and the saddlebags they used to protect their documents are still owned by their families. The far-away first Capitol Building at Iowa City is seen faintly on the horizon.

(The original painting is on display at the Louisa County Heritage Center.)
Copyright © Louisa County (Iowa) Historical Society 2008-2009