“The Western Settlement Society of Cincinnati was a semi-charitable organization founded to aid German immigrants who wished to settle in the American Midwest. In 1844, the Society purchased three hundred acres to the north, and 160 acres to the south, of the Prairie la Porte plat, and the next year acquired the plat as well. Five German families arrived in March 1845, the most determined of an original band of 200 souls, most of whom had remained behind in Burlington, Iowa. By 1851 the town had grown to nearly 300 people, and by 1856 to over 1500, only a few of whom were not German immigrants. The new settlement was appropriately renamed “Guttenberg”, and the name was accepted by the State Legislature. Additional streets were laid out, from the south Hermann, Wieland, Lessing, Schiller, Herder and Goethe streets; and, above the original plat, Mozart and Haydn streets. Prairie la Porte survives in county records as the north half of the original town plat.”
(excerpt from “Guttenberg Iowa-The Limestone City of Clayton County Its Architecture and History, 1854-1951 by James E Jacobson)
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