That county is Kossuth County. I believe it is larger because it had something to do with the number of counties in the state of Iowa, and the politics wanted an odd number? Maybe some historian can clarify this.
Kossuth county is made up of two counties: Kossuth and Bancroft counties. Asa call was the founder of algona, and ended up being elected to the Iowa legislature. There he argued that Bancroft county was not viable because it was swampland and too wet to support a population and therefore a county. He proposed the two counties be merged and they were.
In 1871, there was a proposal to reestablish the second county as Crocker(sp?) county, but that did not come to fruition. There was a map in the county engineers office that shows that.
Sometime after the merger of the two counties, the representatives of Kossuth and Webster counties came up with a plan to set the county seats in particular cities. Asa call wanted algona which is in the southern half of the county, the representative from Webster county wanted ft dodge, which is the northern part of Webster county, neither very central which was a large positive for being selected.
They hatched a plan where Humboldt between the two would give a row of townships to each of those neighbors, making Kossuth extend 6 miles farther south and better centering algona, and making Webster extend 6 miles further north for the same reason. Dakota city would remain central in Humboldt county. After all seats were set, the townships would be retuned .
Kossuth gave them back, Webster did not.
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