In 1866 the budding village of Iberia had a log school house, four frame buildings and a cemetery. The settlement is the center of Stark Township, organized in 1866.
Iberia crossroads was named for a community in Ohio because many of the first settlers were from that state. Stark was the name of a Revolutionary Wargeneral of Massachusetts.
Eastern Yankees were in the majority of the earliest settlers in this section which was dedicated school land. A great future was anticipated for Iberia. By1871 the Winona - St. Peter Railroad was building westward toward New Ulm, and it was expected that from there the line would pass through Iberia where a preliminary survey placed it. By fall though, the plans were changed and the tracks were laid to the north through the site of the present city of Sleepy Eye. As a consequence, the town plat for Iberia was never filed.
Up into the 1900's the Iberia settlement was a useful, convenient trading center, with two blacksmiths, a general store, bootmaker, a merchandise-liquor store, saw mill, grist mill, and post office. The rural community was nicknamed "Brimstone Corners" because it was such a "lively little berg." It had all the characteristics of a typical western borderlandtown: fights, murder, death by Indians, elopements, robberies, political conventions, celebrations, organizations, grasshoppers, scandals, epidemics, births, marriages and deaths.
For a time Iberia prospered but grew little. By the mid 1880's its usefulness was fading. Today the business places, mills and school are gone. A few homes and the cemetery today are all that is left of what was once busy, little Iberia.
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Kunkel - Sponsors
Brown County Historical Society - 1975 ????LK
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