Peering at the Past Soldier, pioneer, hotelier handled “Wild Kate,” founded village of Houston

The founder of the city of Houston, William George McSpadden, Jr., was one of the most influential early settlers in what became Houston County. Often on the move, he came west after one war, led Houston County soldiers throughout another war and later served in the state legislature.

He was born in 1825 or 1826 in Ireland, during his Scottish parents’ two-year stopover on the way to North America. While still a toddler, he emigrated with his parents and four older sisters to New York near Niagara Falls. They made at least three moves back and forth across the Canadian border.

A couple of years after his mother’s death, McSpadden enlisted in the U.S. Army as a drummer boy at age 16 or 17. When his unit was being sent into the Mexican War in 1846, Mac would forego drumming for fighting. As a young adult, he served under the command of General Winfield Scott during many battles, including the capture Mexico City. During this experience, he came to admire another military leader, Sam Houston whose fame continued after the Texas Revolution.

McSpadden, discharged in 1849, joined his married sister’s family in Neenah, Wis., where he married Julia Ann Narricong on January 31, 1850. Later that year, after the birth of their first child Octavia, Mac and Julia relocated in La Crosse, where second daughter Eudora was born and where he operated the Black River House (hotel) and the first ferry crossing  the Mississippi River to La Crescent, Minnesota Territory. That vessel was known as “Wild Kate” due to its unpredictable schedule.

That same year, he made his first exploration up the Root River Valley, it was said on foot. Just west of where South Fork joins the main channel, he decided to build his cabin in a meadow just south of the Root, land which would become

Lower Town. At the time, it was the site of a sizable camp of Winnebago Indians. Six more daughters and two sons would be born in Lower Looney Valley.

On June 14, 1852, McSpadden claimed 80 acres, where he and H. T. Stafford platted a town site west of what became old Looney Valley Road and south of the old river channel. He first called his new town Octavia for his first child. Later, he decided on the name Houston, which reflected on his war experience and admiration for Sam Houston – the hero of the Texas Revolution, the first president of the Republic of Texas and a senator from the state of Texas. A few months later, at the suggestion of another Mexican War veteran, Sam McPhail, the Minnesota Territorial Legislature chose the same name for the county.

A couple of years later, across the river northeast of Houston, he platted another town named Winfield in honor of Gen. Winfield Scott, his commander during the Mexican War and a major 1852 presidential candidate. The family moved to live in the new town site in Lower Looney Valley (on what is now McSpadden Road). His sawmill on Silver Creek was successful, but his second town was not.

When Civil War came in 1861, McSpadden raised a company of Union volunteers. After rejection for inclusion in a new Minnesota regiment, he took his 14 Houston County volunteers to Wisconsin where they enlisted in the 8th Missouri Infantry and saw action during four years of war in the west.

After the Civil War, McSpadden brought home with him a nine-year-old orphaned former Mississippi slave, Calvin Simmons, who stayed with or near the McSpadden family for the rest of his life. Mac was again a miller and farmer from 1865 to 1881 along with serving one term as a state representative in the Minnesota Legislature in 1877. However, his restless pioneer spirit emerged again.

In 1881, McSpadden built the Northwestern Hotel in Clark, S. Dak. The family moved there for a few years but returned to Winona, Minn., for six years before going back to Clark for his final seven years. He died on December 8, 1899, just 24 days before the turn of the century. He was buried in the Protestant cemetery as was Calvin Simmons in a plot adjoining those of the family.

This article reflects the research of area historian Mason Witt.