This photo postcard is titled “Kangaroo Court, Bellevue, Iowa” at the bottom of the image. Photo shows an animated crowd of men on a wooden sidewalk, participating in an event and several young boys watch them and a young Black lad sits comfortably on the wooden sidewalk.
Bellevue (French for ‘beautiful view’) lies on the Mississippi River. With a population of 2209, it is the second largest town in Jackson county. It is in a geographic area called the “Driftless area,” a poetic name for a unique area that escaped all three phases of the Wisconsinian Glaciation.
Since the 1830s, Bellevue was the seat of justice for three counties: Jackson, Jones and Linn, Iowa. By 1845, Bellevue had a courthouse, still in use but as an elementary school.
Undivided back