Plainville, an incorporated city of the third class in Rooks county, is located in the township of the same name on the Union Pacific R. R. 16 miles south of Stockton, the county seat. It has electric lights, a public library, an opera house, 2 banks, 2 weekly newspapers (the Gazette and the Times), a mill, 2 grain elevators, telegraph and express offices, and an international money order postoffice with three rural routes. The population in 1910 was 1,090. In May, 1911, it is said there were 40 of the residents who owned automobiles, which was one to every 27 inhabitants. The first settlers came to Plainville in 1877. The postoffice was established in 1878 with W. S. Griffin as the first postmaster. The first school was taught and the first sermon preached in the same year. The town owns a $25,000 water plant, a school house which cost the same amount, a new public library building is about to be erected and practically every house in town has a telephone.