A word from the scanner/proofing pair -

Our sincere thanks to Mr. Robert Trautwein and his staff at Columbus Library, Columbus, Nebraska. They loaned us the pair of books for the duration of this scanning/proofing project and to Heritage Village and Dick Taylor for providing the web space and support. Additional thanks to Sherri Brakenhoff (Platte CC, NEGenWeb) who set the whole thing up and got us going!

Both volumes of this work have been reproduced keeping the original page numbers specifically so it can be used as resource material.

All photos were printed on one side of a page, leaving the reverse blank. The photo pages of both books had been marred by pencil marks. The pictures were scanned at 300 dpi, and then touched up. As far as possible the damage was "blended" out. The resulting gifs have been stored at 72 dpi to conserve storage space.

We have provided an "Index to Illustrations" for each book (these indexes do not appear in the original volumes). You can go directly to a photo by clicking on the name/title as it appears in the index of illustrations, OR you will find a clickable button in the text pages adjacent to the picture.

Volume One

This is the "history" book for Platte County, NE. The "Table of Contents" is clickable by chapter numbers. The text was divided into web file pages; size determined by downloading time. The result includes two files where the chapter runs over into the next computer file. There is "next page" button at the end of every web file page, so you should have no difficulty if you choose to read the entire book. Use your "back" button to reverse your progress.

The photos in the first volume are few. Some are a "collage" arrangement. Others appeared as pairs on one page. The pages of photos were NOT included in this book's numbering system. Therefore, the page number given in the index is relative to the text page preceeding the photo page. One photo page had been completely detached, & has been inserted where we believe it belongs.

One photo page of Volume One presented special problems. The "Founders of Columbus" is a collage of small photographs. Everything possible was done to provide pictures that are usable. Those appearing are the best we could manage. Perhaps someone with access to the original will someday connect to a volunteer with a scanner and place the result on the web. We know the original was in a large frame in Columbus a few years ago.

Volume Two

This book has NO chapters, and the biographies are NOT arranged in alphabetical order. The original has an index to the persons named in article titles.

The photo pages were included in the page numbering system for volume two. In proofing & double-checking this book, we have concluded that four photos are missing. At least one of those pictures does NOT appear in the other copy of this book that is located at Columbus Library. We suspect the photo did not reach the publisher in time to be included. We can detect no sign of the other three pictures ever being bound in the book, so believe the same story applies to all four.

If you find or suspect an error, please let us know. While the text scanned at 99%+ accuracy, the numbers did NOT. Think we have proofed, and double checked every number - but there is bound to be something we missed. We no longer have access to the original.

Ted & Carole Miller