Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
CLAIM CLUBS
CLAIM CLUBS. Loosely organized groups of squatters who banded together for self-protection and claimed property before land offices were opened. There were only twenty-six claim clubs in Iowa.
One of the earliest clubs, formed on June 17, 1830, met in Dubuque at the base of Jones Street. These miners had discovered potentially rich veins of LEAD and planned to hold them against other miners and speculators. As intruders on land given to Native Americans by a treaty signed in 1804, these men were later forced from their holdings by federal troops.
Claim clubs have historically been considered as foundations of democracy on the frontier. Well-meaning frontiersmen, gathered together against claim jumpers and Eastern speculators, were pictured as gradually forming self-governing communities. More recent evidence suggests claim clubs were just as likely to be speculative ventures that occasionally prevented real settlers from filing claims.