ADELL(sic), a post-village, capital of Dallas county, Iowa, 150 miles W. from Iowa City. (Baldwin's New and Complete Gazetteer of the United States..., 1854)
ADEL, the County Seat of Dallas county, is situated on the State Road leading from Des Moines to Council Bluffs, and is 25 miles west of the former place, and receives two mails per day. It contains six churches, viz: Baptist, Christian, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Brethren, and three Lodges of Secret and Benevolent Societies, viz: Adel Lodge No. 80, A. F. & A. M., Friendship Lodge No. 96, I. O. O. F., and Adel Lodge No. 171 I. O. G. T. It has four general stores, five grocery stores, two drug stores, one book store, one boot and shoe store, one hardware store, one bank, two flour mills, two saw mills, and two brick manufactories. Two newspapers are published weekly, the Dallas Union by Edward W. Fuller, and the Western Journal, by Harmon Cook. Population of township 1800, of town 1,000. (Hair's Iowa State Gazetteer..., 1865)