Mower County Court

Mower County District Court is the official name of the Mower County Court. Motorists can use IS 90, US 63 and 218 or SR's 16, 56, 105 and 251 as they travel through the county.

In the early 1850’s plentiful game brought the first settler to the area; a trapper who built the first log cabin and staked his claim. Soon thereafter approximately twenty families settled in the area. A few years later trains of covered wagons, hauling personal belongings and followed by livestock, brought more settlers to the area. The community which grew around the first log cabin named itself Austin; after the trapper who had built it. In the 1890’s a young man who saw the possibilities in Austin for meat processing organized the Hormel Company there. The same company which produces Spam, used widely by GI’s in World War II, and other food products known throughout the world. With the company’s origin in. Austin it was only natural that The Jay C. Hormel Nature Center preserve covering over 500 acres be established here. Visitors to the preserve can see deer, mink, raccoons, salamanders, birds and other native wildlife as they stroll the its nearly seven miles of trail.
It's a little know fact (and probably false) that the lawn mower was invented here.