This series of posts is headed eventually toward wrapping up the saga of Perry B. "Buckskin" Tracy and Stephen Clark, south-of-Iowa pioneers in the stagecoach story of southern Iowa between 1853 and 1871, when the Western Stage Co. was driven out of business by iron horses.
I wrote a little yesterday about Lagrange, located on the Lucas-Monroe county line, one of three Western stage stops in Lucas County. The others were Chariton and Tallahoma, the latter the most obscure of the three. Never even a village, Tallahoma consisted of the Edwin C. Rankin home, which doubled as an inn for travelers and perhaps housed the Tallahoma store and post office, too. There also would have been a Western Stage Co. barn and perhaps a free-standing blacksmith shop.
The map (above) shows the approximate location due north of Fry Hill Cemetery and on high ground some distance west of the old White Breast Creek crossing on what once was the principal road west to Osceola from Chariton.
In the very early days, residents of a wide area around Tallahoma, stretching west into Clarke County, would have had to travel to Tallahoma to pick up their mail and, most likely, pick up a few necessities at the store as well. The next stage stop to the west, en route to Osceola, was at Ottawa.
If you drive west from Lucas on U.S. 34, you'll still pass through Ottawa but probably won't recognize it (Google street view above). Not much left. The turn-off south (left) into Woodburn is here. Woodburn, like Lucas and Russell, was platted along the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line when it passed through, leaving Ottawa to dry up some distance to the north.
Tallahoma was a joint commercial enterprise of East Tennessee natives John Branner and his protege, Rankin, who arrived in Lucas County during 1853 with military land warrants purchased at discounted rates from Mexican War veterans and, using them, acquired thousands of acres of land. Branner, who located in Chariton, was the major player; Ranken, acting on his own behalf and as Branner's agent, located at Tallahoma as overseer of Branner holdings in that part of the county.
The name was derived from a town in Tennessee, Tullahoma, familiar to both Branner and Rankin. But the postal department inadvertently spelled the name with an "a" rather than a "u" and Tallahoma it became.
Rankin was named postmaster on Aug. 23, 1853, and held the post for 10 years before passing the torch to Moses N. Marsh during 1863.
Marsh, a native of Massachusetts, arrived in Jackson Township during the same year Branner and Rankin, did --- during 1853 --- along with his wife, Maria, and their older children, and settled just southwest of what became Tallahoma. By 1860, he was prospering --- the owner of real estate valued at $7,000, a considerable sum at the time.
Sadly, Moses had very little time left to serve, once appointed, as postmaster. He died at age 42 on Sept. 8, 1863, and his remains were brought into Chariton for burial in the new cemetery just established on the south edge of town.
Without a postmaster, the Tallahoma post office was discontinued on Oct. 16, 1863, but re-established on Nov. 28 of that year when David Webster was appointed to fill the vacancy. A year later, on Dec. 15, 1864, Edwin Rankin was reappointed and continued to serve until June 7, 1875, when the Tallahoma post office was discontinued for good. He packed up his family and headed farther west.
By this time, Lucas was a thriving village and the Norwood Post Office had been established, too. Passengers who once traveled by stage coach now traveled in considerably more comfort aboard trains. Those who once had purchased goods at the Tallahoma store now shopped in Lucas --- or Chariton, or Norwood --- instead.
And Tallahoma became little more than a footnote to Lucas County history.
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