which claims in this then un-surveyed country overlapped each other." The club was renowned for visiting "claim jumpers" with beatings to convince them to leave their claims. Its last act, reportedly in 1858, was to attempt to tar and feather an old man and his three sons reportedly squatting in the area. The Platte Valley Claim Club was established in Fremont in August, 1856 to settle land disputes, and folded by late 1857. Fort Saint Vrain, Nebraska Territory also had a claim club in the late 1850s that was designed to keep the town from failing. It did not succeed. Kansas One story of claim club "justice" comes from Montgomery County, Kansas town in 1867. An early settler had tilled his land and improved on it, according to the provisions of the Homestead Act. However, he had not lived on it for five years. After he sold it to another man, this same settler reportedly went to the United States Land Office to preempt the man to whom he sold the land. After doing so this settler attempted to displace the man he sold the land to and claim it as his own. When the local claim club ordered the town sheriff to "put the man away", the original settler was never seen again. Iowa Claim clubs also secured members' stakes on land they speculated to become important to the federal government, for the purpose of selling it back to the government at a later date. Members of one Iowa claim club purchased 15,000 acres (61 km2) in central Iowa, which eventually was sold in order to develop both the state capitol in Des Moines and Iowa City, where the state university is today. Iowa had several other claim clubs, as well. In Fort Des Moines, Fort Dodge, Iowa and Iowa City active clubs abounded. In Iowa City the club's mission was to "...protect all persons who do or may hold claims, against the interference of any person who shall attempt to deprive such claim holders of their claims and improvements, by preemption or otherwise." Others From 1832 to 1843, Dupage County, Illinois created a number of claim clubs until the federal land surveyors arrived. In 1835 settlers in Elkhorn Creek, Wisconsin formed a claim club. Other settlers did the same, including the town of Yankton, South Dakota. There is also a report of a claim club in Alabama in