Horton, the largest town in Brown county, is an incorporated city of the second class, located on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. R. 14 miles south of Hiawatha, the county seat. It has electricity for power and lighting purposes, waterworks, fire department, opera house, 3 banks, 2 weekly newspapers (the Headlight and the Commercial), good hotels and about 250 business establishments. The Rock Island shops are located here. The town is supplied with telegraph and express offices and has an international money order postoffice with three rural routes. The population according to the census of 1910 was 3,600.

Horton is one of the newer towns in this part of the state. It was founded in Sept., 1886. A weekly paper was started the next month. In Sept., 1887, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific shops, the largest owned by that road in the west, were completed, and Horton had grown large enough to be incorporated as a city of the second class. The next month a daily paper was established. A fire department was organized in November of the same year. In May, 1888, the street railway line was completed and put into operation. In July the electric light plant began business, and when the city was two years old it claimed a population of 4,600. The main cause of the rapid growth was the railroad shops, which were built to employ 2,500 men. The waterworks went into operation in 1889. In 1891 there was a disastrous fire which destroyed the best business blocks in town, the loss aggregating $120,000.