The Council Bluffs area figured prominently in Iowa history through the explorations of Lewis and Clark, the Mormon Trail, Missouri River steamboat traffic, and the railroad industry. Francois Guittar established the first white settlement at Trader’s Point in 1824. When the Mormons arrived in 1846, they called the community Kanesville, and by special charter in 1853 the State Legislature changed the name to Council Bluffs, a name derived from a council Lewis and Clark held with Indians in 1804 on the west side of the river there. The first steamboat landed in the area in 1819, and for the next several decades hundreds of steamboats docked in Council Bluffs, bringing people and goods for westward travel on the Oregon and California trails and to the western gold fields. In 1856, Congress authorized four railroads to cross Iowa from east to west, with two intended to terminate in Council Bluffs: the Northwestern from Lyons and the Rock Island from Davenport. Transportation remained central to the city, which today is served by Interstates 80 and 29. In 1854, Grenville M. Dodge made Council Bluffs his home, and he became known as a Civil War soldier, United States Congressman, and chief construction engineer for several railroads, including the Union Pacific. Council Bluffs was the eastern terminus of that line, and when the Union Pacific joined the Central Pacific in 1869, the first transcontinental railroad in the United States was completed. Early resident Amelia Jenks Bloomer gained national standing as a women’s suffrage leader, gave her name to a new style of clothing for women, wrote widely in periodicals during the 1850s and 1860s, and lectured on temperance and women’s rights. Another noted resident, Dr. Lee de Forest, became known for inventing the three-electrode vacuum tube and holding more than 300 other patents, inventions significant to the development of the radio and electronics industries during the early 20th century.