Council Bluffs, Iowa is located in the county of Pottawattamie. This was the historical beginning point of the Mormon Trail and other emigrant trails.Using the Council Bluffs, IA yellow pages and the Council Bluffs, IA business directory, one will find many interesting historical places as well as arts and culture and other things to do and see. The Squirrel Cage Jail that is located in Council Bluffs is on the National Register of Historic Places and was built on a sort of turntable that a jailer at one time used to crank around to rotate the cell until it lined up with a secured opening on the floor. Supposedly, this is only one of three rotary jails that were ever built. In the 1960s, the rotary jail was disabled and it became a normal jail for the county.The city of Council Bluffs was named after an 1804 meeting of Lewis and Clark with the Otoe tribes. Council Bluffs was a temporary name for land on both sides of the Missouri River. Today's city of Council Bluffs was settled in 1838.
When the gambling laws were liberated in Council Bluffs, the Bluffs Run Greyhound Park opened in 1986. By the year of 2005, Council Bluffs was the 19th biggest casino location in the United States and the income it brought to the state was about $434 million.The city has strong ties with the railroad industry and those are commemorated with three museums. The Union Pacific museum is around Pearl Street and Willow Avenue. The Rails West Railroad Museum is on South Main Street. This specific museum has a nice outdoor showing of historical train cars, which includes a Railway Post office car, two locomotives and cabooses, a Burlington car, and a 1953 switcher car. The third museum is called the Greenville Dodge home.There are 14 elementary schools in the city, two middle schools, and two high schools. There is a career center and as well an alternative school. There is a community school called the Lewis Central Community School that serves the southern part of Council Bluffs as well. Private schools are also in the Council Bluffs area, and the Iowa School for the Deaf is also in the southern part of Council Bluffs, which allows students in Nebraska and Iowa both who are under the age of 21 with hearing losses that put them at a disadvantage to go to public schools can attend here.
Written by Lyndsey Morgan
