by

Julie A. Gale

    Andrew Mullarky was born in 1820, in County Mayo, Ireland. He immigrated to the United States with his family in 1830. They lived in Rhode Island, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois before moving to Iowa. In 1849, Mullarky married. The following year, he moved with his wife, Ellen, to Cedar Falls from Freeport, Illinois. He brought with him a small amount of supplies to open a store, the first in Cedar Falls. This shop, named the Black Hawk Store, prospered for thirteen years. [1] The second level of the building was used for many years to conduct county business and to house records. For this reason, Mullarky was considered the custodian of county records for many years before the county seat moved to Waterloo. [2]

    Andrew Mullarky took over the job of postmaster from Dempsey Overman. He also held many other local positions including service on the school board and town council. He was involved with the railroad and other corporations. Mullarky served on a committee to lay out and establish a state road from Cedar Falls to Independence. He was described as "being thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Western enterprise, of great force of character, possessed of wide and comprehensive views and with full confidence in the successful future of his adopted state." [3]

    Andrew Mullarky died on December 12, 1863, in an accidental drowning. Awakening after having been passed out behind C.R. Wallace’s drug store, Mullarky, still drunk, became disoriented and fell into the millrace on the stormy night. [4] Though people tried to rescue him, because of the wintry conditions, he was not pulled from the water until ten minutes after he had fallen in. He left behind his wife and three daughters.

Footnotes

1. Hake, Herb, 101 Stories of Cedar Falls (Cedar Falls: The Record, 1977), 5. 

2. Hake, 5.

3. History of Black Hawk County (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1878), 319.

4. "The Drowning of Andrew Mullarky," The Cedar Falls Gazette,18 December 1863, 3.

  Bibliography

"The Drowning of Andrew Mullarky." The Cedar Falls Gazette. December 18, 1863, 3.

Hake, Herb. 101 Stories of Cedar Falls. Cedar Falls: The Record, 1977.

History of Black Hawk County. Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1878.