 By 1871, the village, which by then was then called Ness, had grown to double the population of Forest City.The county, at that time, had 6,610 people living in it.Somewhere in town, most likely by the tracks and the depot, the St. Paul and Pacific railroad put up an “immigrant’s reception house.” The 1871 Meeker County News referred to the twenty-five by sixty-foot one-story building as an “emigrant house”.