Pioneer mining investor, merchant, and rancher Alexander Duncan McKinlay was born February 20, 1853 in Clayton County, Iowa, 20-40 miles northwest of Dubuque. In 1877, a year after he married in Iowa, he took up land on Idaho's northern Camas Prairie and went into farming.

Three-horse plow.
Library of Congress.
Almost immediately, he became involved in the Nez Perce War and the other Indian conflicts in 1878 and 1879 ... and acquitted himself well. The
Illustrated History of the State of Idaho des...
Published on February 20, 2021 00:04