Source: Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri
NODAWAY COUNTY is in the northwestern part of the State. It is bounded on the north by Iowa; south by Andrew and Holt counties; east by Worth and Gentry counties; and west by Atchison and Holt counties. It takes its name from the River Nodaway, which runs through the county north and south, and whose Indian meaning is "tranquil". It has a land area of 560,000 acres.

Nodaway County was probably the choicest hunting spot in the Platte Purchase. When Wilson P. Hunt, in 1810, led his expedition from St. Louis to Astoria on the Pacific Coast, the party spent their first winter in the Nodaway country because of the abundance of game found there. They feasted sumptuously upon deer, elk and turkeys all through the cold weather.

In February, 1841, when the act creating Holt County was passed, it was given the name of Nodaway, but a subsequent act passed at the same session changed this to Holt, and the name Nodaway was reserved for the present county, whose organization was completed four years later in 1845.

The first settler in the county was Issac Hogan. He came from Tennessee, and with his brother Daniel Hogan, Richard Taylor and Robert M. Stewart, left Platte County in the spring of 1839 to explore the northwest corner of the State. Robert M. Stewart later became distinguished as Governor of Missouri.

One of the first farmers in the Nodaway County area was Col. Isaac N. Prather who arrived in 1839 from Kentucky. He brought with him horses to work his farm and race horses, which he introduced into northwest Missouri. Col. Prather imported the famous English thoroughbred Faustus and named his farm Faustiana after this horse. The name was later used by the Townsend family to identify their Percheron, Standardbred and American Saddlebred horses.

Among other pioneer farmers was Frank Bellows who raised nationally famous Shorthorn cattle on his Parkdale farm. Many swine farmers in Nodaway County established the Standard Poland China Record Association and registry in 1883.

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