Biographical History of Pottawattmie Co., IA

HRISTOPHER O. MYNSTER, a pioneer of Pottawattamie County, was born in the city of Copenhagen, Denmark, June 24, 1796. He was reared to the business of merchandising, and married Miss Maria Jensen, who was also born in the capital city of Denmark. Their son, Wilhelm Mynster, was born in 1843. In 1846 Mr. and Mrs. Mynster, with their only child, came to America and located in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, where Mr. Mynster engaged in merchandising. When the gold fever in California broke out, Mr. Mynster formed plans for going to the Pacific coast, and started westward in the summer of 1850. Reaching Council Bluffs, he was favorably impressed with the appearance of the country, and with the promises that real estate gave he decided to stop here. He accordingly bought a large number of claims of Mormon residents who were about to leave. Returning to Washington, he brought out his family in the spring of 1851, and settled at Council Bluffs. But he did not long survive, becoming a victim of that fatal disease, cholera, his death occurring on the 16th of August, 1852. The sudden death of Mr. Mynster and the consequent unsettled state of his business served as an opportunity for unprincipled men, who, taking advantage of circumstances, "jumped" most of the claims that Mr. Mynster had purchased, and deprived the family of much of the lands that properly belonged to them. Mrs. Mynster, however, deprived by the death of her husband, took charge of his business and soon proved that she possessed remarkable business capacity, although not able to retain much of the land that her husband had purchased. She bought the land that now constitutes the Mynster Addition to the city of Council Bluffs, which she laid out and realized much therefrom. In 1882 she erected in the city what is known as the Mynster Blocks, on each side of Broadway.

The Mynster Park, where she now resides, is a most beautiful locality. The place comprises several hundred acres of timber land, which she obtained in 1860,m and also a number of beautiful and remarkable springs, some of which contain valuable medicinal properties; and they, together with the beautiful surrounding scenery, promise in the near future to make a popular resort. At this writing she is about to lay out Mynster Park into lots, with an avenue 100 feet wide, and has obtained from the city a charter for a street car or motor line through the same, and by the time this sketch is published it will be built and many handsome residences erected on the same. W. A. Mynster, her only son is a very prominent lawyer of Council Bluffs, and the father of four sons and one daughter.

Mrs. Mynster was much younger than her husband, having been born in 1823, and is certainly a lady of marked ability and business capacity. Though Mr. Mynster did not long survive after his removal to Iowa, yet he lived long enough to establish the character of an upright, honest and energetic citizen. He was a consistent member of the Lutheran Church, a kind husband and father and in all respects and estimable citizen.

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