DENISON, the county seat [Crawford County, Iowa], is situated near the centre of the county, in the forks of the Boyer River, and on the line of the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad, and is 79 miles west of Boonsboro, the present terminus of that road. It was first settled in September, 1856, by J. W. Denison, F. Reynolds, J. B. Swain, R. W. Calkins, O. S. Gates, F. W. Buescher. Jacob Whitinger, Morris McHenry, J. T. Seagrave and Eli Baer. Mary Louise Seagrave, born November 13th, 1857, was the first white child born in Denison. The first death was that of a child of Francis Reynolds. The first school house was erected in 1857. The first store in 1856. The court house was built in 1859.
The Methodist Episcopal and Baptist Churches each have a society. One good district school is taught in Denison. Denison has two hotels, two stores, one lawyer, one blacksmith and one shoemaker.
Mails arrive at and depart from Denison, tri-weekly going east and west, and semiweekly, going north and south. Population, 101. (Hair's Iowa State Gazetteer..., 1865)