Kanesville is also the northernmost anchor town of the other emigrant trails because there was a steam-powered boat which ferried the settlers' wagons and cattle across the Missouri River.

When the area was bought from Ioway, Sac and Fox tribes in the Platte Purchase and part of Missouri in 1837, Sauganash and the Pottawatomi were forced to move to their assigned reservation in Council Bluffs.

[13][14] De Smet wrote an early description of the Potawatomi settlement: Imagine a great number of cabins and tents, made of the bark of trees, buffalo skins, coarse cloth, rushes and sods, all of a mournful and funereal aspect, of all sizes and shapes, some supported by one pole, others having six, and with the covering stretched in all the different styles imaginable, and all scattered here and there in the greatest confusion, and you will have an Indian village.

[15]As more Native Americans were pushed into the Council Bluffs area by pressure of European-American settlement to the east, intertribal conflict increased, fueled by the illegal whiskey trade.

[17] By 1848, the town had become known as Kanesville, named for benefactor Thomas L. Kane who had helped negotiate federal permission in Washington, D.C. for the Mormons to use Indian land along the Missouri as their winter encampment of 1846–47.

They traversed the (eventual) Nebraska Territory traveling in wagon trains along the much-storied Oregon, Mormon, or California Trails into the newly expanded United States western lands.

They built up thereafter, with the opening of the Mormon Trail (1846) and peaked in the later 1860s, when news of the progress of railroads had a braking effect on the number of travelers.

[18] The town continued as a major outfitting point on the Missouri River for the Emigrant Trail and Pike's Peak Gold Rush, and entertained a lively steamboat trade.

The cute Yankee whittling out wooden hams to sell to Pikes' Peak emigrants, the Chatham Street peddler, with his stock of "oht clo's," ready to swear that he had them manufactured expressly for his western trade; the mock auctioneer, the jeweler with his pinchback jewelry of all kinds; horse and mule jockeys, gamblers, thieves, assassin—and the mischief knows what not, rather than what is—all congregated in this little 7×9 city, stuck in a great ravine, 3 miles from the Missouri River.

By the late 20th century the city and region were suffering economic stagnation and a declining population, as they struggled to develop a new economy.

[3] Council Bluffs covers a unique topographic region originally composed of prairie and savanna in the Loess Hills with extensive wetlands and deciduous forest along the Missouri River.

The downtown area developed as the economic rival of Old Town after the 1853 opening of the Pacific House Hotel by Samuel S. Bayliss and until the 1867 completion of the Chicago and Northwestern.

Downtown declined as the city's primary retail center after the 1955 completion of the Broadway Viaduct, 1970s urban renewal, and the 1984 opening of the Kanesville Boulevard U.S. Route 6 bypass.

Today the area encompasses Billy Caldwell's settlement of Potawatomi on Indian Creek during the 1830s and Kanesville established by the Mormons as Miller's Hollow in 1848.

These neighborhoods of long, tree-shaded avenues are divided by the commercial corridor of West Broadway (U.S. Route 6), once part of the Lincoln Highway.

This stretch of West Broadway has traditionally had several drive-in fast food restaurants and automobile dealerships with several grain elevators adjacent along 1st Avenue.

Dodge Memorial funds and now known as Citylight West Council Bluffs), and many examples of late 19th and early 20th century residential architecture.

The appearance of legalized gambling in Council Bluffs became a major issue in neighboring Omaha where Mayor Hal Daub had declared Iowa an "XXX state" in 1995 as horse-racing came to an end at Ak-Sar-Ben.

The Interstate 80 Exit at 1-B at South 24th Street includes two large truck stops along with several motels, the Western Historic Trails Center, the Bluffs Acres manufactured home development, and The Marketplace shopping area.

In the early 20th century much of the area was dubbed "Dane Town" or "Little Copenhagen" for the large number of Danish immigrants with several Croatian and Mexican families closer to the Union Pacific railyards at "Little Vienna".

Neighborhood landmarks include Peterson Park, Longfellow School, and the 1899 Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific passenger depot, now the RailsWest Railroad Museum.

Oakland-Fairview developed during the 1890s and features a wealth of 19th-century architecture, including the Judge Finley Burke mansion at 510 Oakland built in 1893 out of Minnesota granite.

Mosquito Creek flows through this area which was originally notable for the Potawatomi gristmill and now includes the usual roadside gas stations, fast food restaurants, motels, and the tracks of the Iowa Interstate Railroad.

One 1890 newspaper article referenced in Lt. RL Miller's "Selected History of the Council Bluffs Police" noted the "places of vice and corruption on Pierce" and Stella Long's above the Ogden House along with the "terrible den at the corner of Market and Vine" and Belle Clover's bagnio at 8th St. and West Broadway.

[20] In 2011, EPA found numerous violations of the Clean Water Act, because the plant's contaminated stormwater commingled with treated process wastewater and was pumped out to the storm sewer, which discharged into the Missouri River.

[30] In 2007, Google began construction of a server farm on the former site of the Council Bluffs drive-in theater on Veterans Memorial Highway.

RailsWest is housed in an 1899 Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad passenger depot later shared with the Milwaukee Road, which was used by the Rocky Mountain Rocket, the Arrow, and the Midwest Hiawatha.

Iowa Western Community College is located on the eastern edge of Council Bluffs near the intersection of Interstate 80 and U.S. Route 6 and is the home of the radio station KIWR.

Buena Vista University also has a location in Council Bluffs and partners with Iowa Western Community College to offer bachelor's degree completion programs to IWCC graduates.

The Union Pacific, BNSF, Iowa Interstate, and Canadian National Railroads all connect in Council Bluffs and carry important freight traffic.