Along the Cedar in and around Vinton, history stretches from early archaeological evidence near the Cedar River in eastern Iowa dating as early as 11,000 - 8,500 B.C. to later settlement, industry, transportation, and floods. The varying cultures collectively called Mound Builders lived in North America over a 5,000-year period and built earthen mounds for religious and ceremonial, burial, and elite residential purposes; artifacts from this era have been found near the river, and mounds likely from the period are present in the county. In 1845 Chauncey Leverick became the first settler in Vinton, and early settlers arrived in prairie schooners and lived in them until building homes. In 1854 Benton City, seven miles east of Vinton on the south side of the river, had more than 400 people, stores, two grist mills, a sawmill, Stoddard's Show House and hotel, and sixteen blocks platted over 20 acres, but after a railroad survey changed, the town declined and nearly disappeared. In 1858 the 100-foot steamboat Black Hawk carried cargo and passengers, held 60 tons of freight, traveled 10 miles per hour, and stopped at Vinton until 1861, when it was sold for use in the Civil War. Transportation into Vinton was long limited by the Cedar River, and before the railroad, local men cut cord wood each winter and hauled it into town; after earlier discussion in 1856, rail reached Shellsburg in November 1869, and the first train backed down the track on December 14, 1869. The Vinton Pearl Button Company, founded in December 1897 by S.C. Clark and Frank Wilson at 1st Avenue and 3rd Streets, employed 100 workers, 60 percent of them women and girls, made buttons from river shells, left punched shells that were used as fill around town and along the river, and at peak production turned out about 345,000 buttons per week; in 1900 it was Iowa's only finishing factory. In 1901 George Knapp laid out plans for a new town called Minne Estema, a name he drew from Indian mythology. A 1932 letter by Halla M. Rhode, referring to information from George Young Bear of the Tama settlement, identified a place where a creek called Wah be neh se po eh or Lime Stone Little River joined the Mesqua wah ke ke se po or Red Cedar River as a beautiful and well-known Indian meeting ground called Three Waters, or Nes swe ne pe in Mesquakie. Vinton later endured major floods, with crests of 19.3 feet in 1961, 19.2 feet in 1993, and 24.7 feet in 2008, the worst on record.