History:
The Homestead Act was really responsible for the Lyons community. Nearly all of the pioneers or someone in their families were connected with the Civil War. The Lyon, Everett, and Fritts pioneer families were the ones responsible for starting the community. These families all came to Lyons from Wisconsin. The earliest deed of record near Lyons was to S. Cochran in 1861, who sold 160 acres of land, adjoining what is now Lyons on the north, to Gideon Fritts in 1866. Waldo Lyon later bought 320 acres of land from Charles Harvey, on the south side of the present Main Street of Lyons. He then entered 160 acres of government land on the north and by exchanging one forty acres with Gideon Fritts, he had a piece of ground one mile east and west and one-fourth mile wide. It was on this land where the original townsite was planned by Waldo Lyon, Sr., and incorporated April 29, 1884.
The first store was established by B.F. Barber in 1868. It served the community well until Waldo Lyon came. In 1869, Lyon built the Lyons Roller Mill. The mill ground all the farmers' wheat and also sold flour all over the United States. About 1875, Franklin Everett built a store. This store was filled with goods suitable to the wants and needs of the people in a new community.
The first industry in Lyons was a brickyard. In 1881, Franklin Everett built a bank, the first bank in the settlement. The first railroad had reached Lyons by this time. The first school was held in a back room of Josiah Everett's farm house in the fall of 1868.