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Father J. M. J. Smyth, formerly of this place, but now of the new town, O'Connor, Greeley County, was in Tuesday. He reports a splendid building and immigration boom in his county. Twenty families from Boston have located in Wheeler County near O'Connor and eighteen families in Greeley County close to O'Connor. They have erected a splendid emigrant house forty by twenty feet, and are arranging for the lumber to put up a fine church, eighty by forty feet, also a residence for Father Smyth, thirty-two by twenty feet.

April 23, 1884 --- The amount of business done by the Columbus Packing Company for the past season certainly makes a good showing. From the company's books we are allowed to condense the following items: Number of hogs purchased and killed during the season, nine thousand head, at an average weight of two hundred eighty-five pounds, from which a grand total of 1,357,557 pounds of meats have been manufactured; also 313,107 pounds of lard.

September 3, 1884 --- Messrs. Armstrong and Charles Davis have engaged in the business of a canning factory in this city, their building being located on the alley between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets at the rear of Eimer's building, where they have in position an engine and all the necessary machinery to carry on the business. This season's work will embrace the canning of all kinds of available vegetables and fruits, as well as catsup.

November, 1884 --- The new washing machine factory located in Columbus has turned out several loads of machines.

BLACK HILLS GOLD RUSH

Our local history ties into the picture of the history in this wide area of the West.

In 1875, nineteen years after the founding of Columbus, a group of wide awake merchants organized the Black Hills Mining Company. They wished to be known as the outfitting and caravan place for the mines.

Newspapers at that time carried advertisements for coming by rail to Columbus and purchasing all of the necessities here. The club also retained a group of plainsmen who knew the hills country, and the best routes to get there.

These scouts agreed at a certain price per vehicle to lead gold seekers to their desired destination. Captain Luther North, who had been present when gold was discovered ill the hills, headed the scouts.

In 1875, Isaac Newton Taylor, a well known Nebraska promoter, moved his office from Omaha to Columbus and became secretary to the promotion of the Black Hills Mining Company. In connection with John G. Routson Mr. Taylor occupied a real estate office near the depot, hotel and banks. He had contracted to sell two hundred thousand acres of land outside the U. P. R. R. limits in Cuming, Stanton, Wayne, Madison, Boone and Antelope counties at a price range of from two dollars and fifty cents to six dollars and fifty cents per acre on long credit and low interest. He had advertised great bargains in second hand and improved lands.

The Columbus Journal of March 31, 1875 mentioned that I. N. Taylor had put up a large sign at his office indicating to the public where they could get information in regard to the "Columbus Club" to the Black Hills.

JULY , 1875 Columbus Journal

The Columbus Journal published the following private letter from Major Frank North, Mrs. E. H. Chambers' father, at Fort Russell near Cheyenne, Wyoming, to his brother, James E. North, Esq., Mrs. C. D. Evans' father, of this city. The Major was well known in Columbus.

Dear Brother Jim:

I wrote you a few days since, but did not write much, and as I have had some little news since thought I would write again; I can't find out whether the order prohibiting people from going to the hills has been rescinded or not, but I know everybody is going now that want to and are not molested. A Captain Brown (one of the Janney party and a son of John Brown) came in yesterday and brought a fine lot of specimens. He brought a small piece of quartz weighing four ounces, and our druggist crushed it in an iron mortar and then with quicksilver took out about twenty-five cents in nice gold. I saw it myself and can vouch for the truth. People here are wild, and are going every day in every conceivable way, from afoot with small packs to the big outfit of mules and oxen. I would like some of the gold as well as anyone but I haven't the fever a bit; there is no doubt money in anything a man might take up there, and more, perhaps, in a portable sawmill than anything else. Jim Sanders (an old government employee) says he never saw such timber grow as there is in that country. He says lumber will be in great demand and will be very high at first; he came through on a pony in four days, and says after the road is straightened and traveled more, teams can go from here to the mines in seven days. How different from the old California and Pike's Peak mining days! Seven men are reported scalped in the Hills. Don't know how true it is.

Times are lively just now in Cheyenne, as Doctor Daniels spends the whole twenty-five thousand dollars paid the Sioux for their Nebraska hunting rights, here. He bought horses, wagons, cows, and etc. all here in the town. We are all as usually well and all send love.

Write when you can.

Yours as ever
Frank

The Columbus Journal of February 23, 1876, says: "The first company to leave for the Black Hills from Columbus will start about the first of March. It will consist of seventy-five to one hundred men and be conducted by A. J. Arnold, who has had experience in the mines and on the plains. Arrangements have been perfected by which several other mining companies will join Mr. Arnold on the route, making the advance guard to the hills strong and effective in case anything unusual should happen to the expedition. They will go by way of Warren's Oakdale, Neligh, French Town, etc."

COPY OF A REPORTER'S DIARY IN
Leslie's Weekly, SEPTEMBER, 1877

Frontier Villages, Plainsmen, Indians and Prairie Dogs as seen by reporters on Leslie's excursion from New York to the Pacific in September, 1877.

In Nebraska from Fremont to Columbus, the chief beauty of interest of the plains is borrowed from their relation to the sky; the Platte Valley with its absence of marked features and strong lights and shadows. Speaking of a windy April afternoon; the strong wind is driving the clouds. That hasn't changed. The rolling cloud shadows lend life and change and incessant variety. The sun is hot. The last year's grass is a brown mat as far as the eye can reach: no shade --- no trees ---; and no motion in the landscape except the hurrying clouds.

Long parallel lines of smooth shining rail, and the diminishing ranks of telegraph posts stretching away from our track as we sit on the platform, are wonderfully important and suggestive features in the scene.

Tracks seem straight, scarcely a curve all day in that long "iron rail," only now and then for a few miles a side track travels with us and unites at some little station or round house.

We find excitement in the approach on one of these switches of a train bound East; every window full of heads and arms; chiefly feminine and infantile.

The engine stops and they all rush out to exchange greetings with someone awaiting them out of the coach.

The passengers are dusty. The brakeman is in shirt sleeves, and there is also the trim gold buttoned conductor. Outside there is a universal and frigid atmosphere of sitting for their pictures. Everybody strikes a hasty attitude and composes his features; the engineer reclines gracefully against his cowcatcher, and all of the hands, with one distinctive impulse, seek sheltering pockets, while an artist and photographer shift their tripod from spot to spot, hit the happy point of sight at last, and fix the picture, and then there is a scramble for the platform again, and the engines, with a puff and a sneeze, start their muscles and sinews of iron. In another minute, there is only a trail of brown smoke hanging over the plain beside us, and we are once more alone on the great empty waste.

Ames is passed. At North Bend, some nine or ten miles west, somebody sighted Indians and shouted. Everybody looked and saw a cluster of tepees, painted white cones, within a stone's throw of the track and close by the scattered buildings and tank house of North Bend. They look white in the sun, made from freshly dressed skins, the first and last we will see on our journey. Denizens of meanness and squalor surprised by general decency and dignity, which savors quite strongly of the James Fenimore Cooper braves.

The picture gives only a flying glimpse and many objective details are lost.

The Indians described are a group of tall motionless figures, bare-headed and blanketed, with long black raids framing each furrowed and stern face; some chubby children blanketed likewise, standing over a camp fire, and two or three squaws, with their swathed up & mummified papooses. Some young woman who had never seen an Indian before thought that they were really handsome.

An old traveler from the next car says, "Make the most of them. I have crossed the plains twelve times and those are the most favorable specimens of the Indian that I ever met on this route. You'll find nothing of that sort among the Pintes and Shoshones further on."

The tepees disappear so quickly, there isn't any time for sketches. Lounging on our seats, we discuss Indians and the Indian question, the March of Civilization, and the chances of buffalo along the route; and learn to the point of disgust of some of the party, that we may expect to meet with nothing wilder than the great herds of cattle which have begun to dot the plains.

Within the last three years, now 1877, the buffalo entirely disappeared from the belt of land traversed by the Union Pacific, and only their bones lie bleaching where the trails used to run due north and south. The antelope are fast following, and have already retreated west of the Rocky Mountains.

There are prairie dogs and ground owls, whose villages we shall soon pass. At Schuyler, there is a fair show of neat houses and a show of white paint; and near the railroad track, by the station, the universal feature in western landscape, the tank house and tall skeleton windmill, whirring briskly in the strong wind. The population of eight hundred is represented by masculine stragglers on platforms and around the few stores; they are brown bearded men with slouch hats and pantaloons tucked in their big cowhide boots, and not a woman in sight except two little girls. The women manage to secrete themselves, for we never catch sight of a skirt or bonnet traversing their wide, straggling streets.

Leaving Schuyler, we again see a stretch of barren prairie, grazing cattle far away and the eternal dance of the silent cloud and shadows. Here and there we see a solitary ranche or a low "dug out" --- that gravel-like mound of earth thrown up yonder-with its boarded front and rough door, crowned, perhaps, with a pair of spreading ox-horns. In Indian skirmishes, a few years back, these mold-like burrows, with their roofing of solid earth and stout raw-hide did good service in protecting the beleaguered settlers. Now, they serve a more peaceful end, and are used chiefly as store-houses, standing apart by the mud and thatch-built stable and large corral of some lonely ranche.

The afternoon is wearing on as we reach Columbus, in the "County" of Platte. It is a neat thrifty-seeming little settlement, too utterly unlike an eastern town or village to be designated by either name. Our brief pause gives us the general impression of broad, shadeless streets, neat stores and a smart brick building or two, with a glaring white hotel fronting the track. This was Columbus in 1877. From this point, last year 29,700,000 pounds of wheat was sent over the Union Pacific road, and one of the most prominent features in our passing glimpse of the town is the tall grain elevator, with its

adjoining store-houses. There is such a likeness between these baby cities that the traveler seems in despair in his guide book to learn the characteristic points and differences in population. Schuyler, then had a population of eight hundred, and Columbus with two thousand souls, so that Columbus gains in dignity over Schuyler accordingly, . . . on paper.

We see an independent figure of the Order of Mennonites again. Then later a party of Pawnee Scouts, or a group of children, ankle deep in a pool near the tracks --- remnant of a recent storm --- saluting our train with cheers and waving hats.

Looking from the train windows during the night, one sees only barnyard cattle turned out to graze, dark shapes unknown that traverse the plains with flying leaps, and one hears the howling coyotes. We see a warm red star twinkling out near the track, and we come upon a little wayside station with glowing windows and wide open door, and a wakeful lounger or two on the platform, seen for a second as we rub our sleepy eyes.

Plum Creek is a place with a history such as most frontier towns can tell, repeating each other with painful fidelity through tales that would make a dime novelist blush. An Overland Stage company had formerly a station at this point and the Indians and settlers met there in sharp conflicts more than once. Ten years earlier, in 1867, a band of Cheyennes, commanded by a chief-euphoniously known as Turkey Leg-succeeded in wrecking a train on a small culvert near the Creek, firing the cars and capturing all of the merchandise, bales of goods, etc., with which they were laden. In the moment of their triumph, when reveling in the spoils with which they had strewn the Plains, they were discovered by a detachment of Pawnee scouts belonging to the command of Major North, and here ensued a brisk fight between "Turkey Leg's" Cheyennes and forty-eight Pawnees under Uncle Sam, which ended in the utter rout of the hostiles. We saw the wreckage of a train, the cars splintered, and six dead cows, but no human lives were lost.

Then, the picture of the trail in 1877, as the river recedes again, we are met by the old wagon road or emigrant trail. Passing close to the track, we see its deep ruts worn still by wheels, and many a little heap of bleached bones marking the spots "where the slow footed cattle lay down to die," in some hungry march long ago.

Near Lodge Pole. we pass our first emigrant "Ship of the Plains," the great canvas-top wagon, so familiar in pictures of Western life; the team of horses turned loose to graze, an ox browsing near them, and another huge ox lying on his side, with a rough group of wet and dejected men standing over him. He has dragged his last load, poor fellow! Next year his bones will make another little white land mark in the long weary journey.

A pleasant feature of the journey from Omaha west (1877), was the constant succession of pretty groves of trees, which have dotted the plains, giving to the expanse of prairie the appearance of a noble park.

The settlers now (1877) planted these trees to protect their farms, and also for comfort and beauty. The Nebraskans celebrate a spring holiday, started in 1872, in which the entire population join hands in a hearty exercise of tree planting; this is called "Arbor (meaning tree) Day." (Note that '947 was the seventy-fifth anniversary of this old custom.) The tree most popular is the cottonwood, which grows easily, sure to start, quite luxuriant in foliage, invaluable for shelter and stove wood, only not for manufacturers.

The trees in the Platte Valley that were planted as cuttings in thirteen years measured thirty-two inches in diameter.

Note.

Settlers, when they arrived, aimed to accomplish two things: first, to break the sod for a corn field and next, to plant timber for shelter. The winds which blew from the west were very constant, often fierce and a shelter was of immense value to stock and fruit trees. Hedges of white willow planted for protection were also a great help. The rapidity of growth in the rich alluvial soil reminds one of the luxuriance of the tropics.

BUFFALO BILL FORMED SHOW IN COLUMBUS
Columbus Daily Telegram, AUGUST, 1946

So strongly has the tradition of Buffalo Bill been emplanted on the United States that his name will endure as long as America lives.

It is equally true that Columbus played a very important part in building that tradition, for it was in Columbus that Buffalo Bill's famous Wild West Show was born.

In the 1870's and 1880's, many men, some with money, others with vision, organized cattle companies throughout Western and Central Nebraska. In 1877, James E. North, his brother, Luther H. North, and Abner Turner, all of Columbus, and O. F. Richards, of Chicago, set up such a company, selecting the Pitchfork brand. The area selected to run the stock was on the Dismal River, north of North Platte.

WILLIAM CODY AND FRANK NORTH RANCH

In the same year, Frank H. North, brother of James and Luther, and William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, already famous as a plainsman and hunter, organized the Cody and North Ranch, selecting the CN brand.

The two companies ranged their cattle together along the South Dismal, some sixty-five miles north of the teeming town of North. Platte. Actually, like a great many of the companies of the time, the two cattle companies were short-lived, and history has it that they broke up in 1882.

At that time, Luther North owned from thirty to fifty cow ponies on the range, and left his nephew, Edward North, son of James, and who later was for many years a Columbus banker, in charge of them.

"BUFFALO BILL" CODY WAS A SHOWMAN

William Cody was more of a showman than a rancher and from boyhood liked to exhibit his ability to ride and shoot. He was the hero of the Ned Buntline stories.

In the early 1880's, Cody, together with Charlie and Edward Burgess of Columbus, toured the country in a series of lively "Western" acts. In 1881, the people of North Platte planned a gala Fourth of July celebration, and hit on the idea of having Buffalo Bill stage some sort of spectacular act. An old stagecoach, which had actually been held up, was available, and showman Buffalo Bill planned a stagecoach holdup by Indians.

In the spring of 1883, with the stagecoach and some other show paraphernalia, Cody came to Columbus to interest his old associates in his new venture. Frank North, also famous as the major in charge of the pawnee Scouts, an Indian aggregation which rendered exceptional service to the United States during the Civil War and years afterward, induced many of his old Indian scouts to join the new Cody enterprise as the redskin delegation for the coach holdup act.

COLUMBUS MEN JOIN TROUPE

Three Columbus men, Fred Matthews, George Clother, and George Turner, also joined the troupe, and Cody set up headquarters in Columbus, where for many days, the various acts of the show were then rehearsed. The rehearsals took place at the old fair grounds, located a short distance northwest of Columbus.

When the acts were perfected, a dress rehearsal was staged at the fair grounds, free of charge, and so successful was the program that Buffalo Bill declared his new circus was ready for the road.

The Wild West Show left Columbus May 15, 1883, for Omaha, where it had been decided to hold the first public performance. Besides Cody, in the company were Doctor W. F. Carver, Captain Bogardus and Oklahoma Payne. There were many Indians, squaws, and papooses, and also Mexicans. Fred Matthews was the driver of the stagecoach and George Turner played in the band.

WILD WEST SHOW

There were six train car loads of equipment and people when the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show pulled out of Columbus. The circus presented a public appearance in Omaha on May 19, 1883, with ten thousand people attending.

When Buffalo Bill was organizing his show, he needed cow ponies but did not have the money to buy them. He offered Luther North a substantial interest in his show for the herd of ponies on the South Dismal but North was not impressed He sold the ponies to William Cody, however, electing to take his pay out of the receipts.

Frank North did not join the show itself until 1884, When he went to St. Louis to begin the season with it. North was put in charge of the Indians, at which he was a master. He was severely injured at Hartford, Connecticut, when a pony fell on him. On March 5, 1885 he decided to return home, a very sick man. He died enroute in Omaha, March 16.

Buffalo Bill continued on for nearly forty years, became internationally famous with his Wild West Show, and established himself as one of the foremost entertainers of all time.

HISTORICAL SKETCH---JULY 4, 1876 by I. N. Taylor

"In obedience to the joint resolution of Congress and the proclamation of the President of the United States and the Governor of Nebraska, and in compliance with the executive committee of the Platte County jubilee,* the following sketch was presented:

ORIGINAL PLATTE COUNTY

The County of Platte, in the State of Nebraska, as originally defined by an act of Territorial Legislature in i was composed of the twenty-four miles square, or five hundred and seventy-six square miles included in Townships 17, 18, 19, and 20 North of range i, 2, 3, and 4, East of the sixth principal Meridian.

In 1858, it was made to include, in addition, all of Monroe County on the West which was not comprised within the Pawnee Indian Reservation.

In 1868, the County of Colfax was created by an act of the State Legislature taking from Platte all of the East three ranges. After several changes made at different times, the southern boundary has been fixed and it now remains at the South side of the South Channel of the Platte River, from the sixth principal Meridian and at the South side of the North Channel of the river, westward from said line.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL FEATURES

The geographical features, geological composition and topographical relations of the County all denote what experience is already proving, an eminently good agricultural and pastoral country, with superior advantages of internal commerce.

One sixth of the entire surface across the southern portion consists of the magnificent bottoms of the two principal interior rivers of the state, the Platte and the Loup. Next to this belt is one of similar width, composed of low undulating tablelands and the winding valley of Shell Creek, which taken together and in front of the more elevated and rolling plain beyond, present a picture of simple beauty as nearly perfect in its order as Nature ever offers to human eyes. The North two-thirds of the area includes, with its outward slopes, the outspread watershed between the channels of Shell and Union creeks, or looking farther off between the greater currents of the Loup and Elkhorn River. This variegated surface is geologically the same throughout, consisting nearly everywhere of that rare combination of clay, sand, phosphate of lime, ashen salts and vegetable mold, which is properly called loam, and which science prescribes for the production of the best quality of cereals and fruits.

TOPOGRAPHY

Topographically, the County enjoys the enviable position, being on the great highway of the state and of the nation. The Union Pacific Railroad and central in central Nebraska justifying the prediction of I. N. Taylor, July 4, 1876, here recorded, and laid up, against all the future, even unto the centennial of 1976, that it will become and remain the gravital centre of

*I. N. Taytor was a member of the executive committee.

Nebraska's population, locomotion, business and wealth, where the capital of the State ought, of right, to be.

Previous to the year 1856, all of this fair prairie world had been in the undisputed possession of wild beasts and savage tribes. Some white man's foot may indeed have marked the margin of the streams in the capacity of hunter and trapper, and certain it is that honorable footprints had been made by government surveyor and topographical engineer far beyond. But not until the sweet spring morning of 1856 did the pioneers of our western civilization scent from afar the odors of these northern plains rising at the touch of the morning sun of that new day of progress, whose first hour is not yet past and whose red rays are just beginning to chase the shadows of the desert through the gates of a golden paradise beyond, whose treasures have slept there throughout the Night of Ages, beside the mountain streams, beneath the dark pines, within their beds of sand and rock.

LOCATION

The Sixth principal Meridian, a line passing across the State from south to north, and cutting the valleys of the Platte and Loup, within their junction, had been located, and the Fourth Standard Parallel which lies near the Platte for so long a distance West of the Elkhorn had been extended, so that the character of this locality had been noised abroad. The founding of a city within this junction, where the through travel would naturally cross the Loup on its way to the mountains and the coast, was a sensible thought occurring to those only, however, who are given to such reflections. But whoever would afterwards enjoy the honors and rewards of such an enterprise must first take its risks and endure its hardships.

NAMES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

Manifestly, I come now to a point in my story where names, dates, and special events must be recited. I beg therefore to request, in advance, that if, despite my intention to tell a truthful story, there shall be any misstatements, they may be pardoned.

Furthermore, if the lines of grave history should be here and there shaded with a tinge of innocent humor at anyone's expense, as part of the social joys of the day, I beg the subjects to be duly good-natured. And finally, as we must evidently soon come to a point in the narrative where the population and the affairs of the county will be found so numerous and spreading that all history of individual persons will be out of the question iii this brief document, let us all unenviously concede this distinction to the old settlers, who drove down their stakes previous to 1860."

EXCERPTS AND COMMENTS ON OLD SETTLERS
AND THEIR DOINGS

Here, I. N. Taylor in his historical sketch named only three of the five men in the advance guard of the Columbus Company.

These men* who marked a site a few miles east of Columbus, in March, 1856, were: Frederick Gottschalk, Jacob Louis, Adam Denck, Michael Smith, and a hired surveyor named George Rousch. Taylor mentioned their marking the site in May, 1856. Further, he said the Columbus Company was organized and a committee of exploration designated with authority to locate.

In this group he mentioned only ten of the original thirteen and named Charles Turner as one of the group. Charles Turner was a hired surveyor from Omaha who came to Columbus to help John Rickly with the town plat. There is no record or evidence that he completed any surveys in that area.

Jacob Louis said there were thirteen men in the party who arrived in Columbus on May 29, 1856. They were: Frederick Gottschalk, Carl Reinke, Michael Smith, Jacob Guter, John Wolfel, Vincent Kummer, Henry Lusche, Charles Bremer, John Browner, J. P. Becker, Anthony Voll, John Held, and himself, Jacob Louis.

Adam Denck was one of the five men in the advance guard, and John Rickly was a member of the Columbus Company. He came to the town site in July, 1856, and made the first survey of the town.

In this work of the "Platte County History," published in 1949, for my authority, I have quoted from Jacob Louis, the historian of the founders, who was one of the advance company and one of the thirteen men who located here on May 29, 1856.

I have talked with, and received a signed statement from the children of Jacob Louis, Jacob Guter, Charles Reinke, Frederick Gottschalk, John P. Becker, John Browner, John Held, and Henry Lusche; the nephew of Michael Smith; the grandchildren of Charles Bremer and John Rickly.

I. N. Taylor gives the date of the founding as May 28, 1856. Columbus was founded on May 29, 1856, the birthday of John P. Becker. Taylor spells the name of Louis as Lewis; the name of Denck as Denk, and McAllister as McAlister.

He recorded a second group of settlers who came to Platte County **October, 1856. Among the names listed was that of John H. Green. That fall, however, Mr. Green was in business in Omaha, and Fred Gottschalk and John M. Becker worked for him there in the spring of 1857.

The only settlers who located in Platte County and stayed throughout the first winter were D. Hashberger and his son, and Mrs. John Wolfel. John Haney and Charles Quinn also came at that time, but no mention was ever made of them during the severe winter of 1856-1857.

Michael Weaver, Jacob Baker, and Gustavus Becher, Sr., all came in 1857.

The first group in Platte County was the advance guard of the Columbus Company who marked the site a few miles east of Columbus in March, 1856. On April 27, a claim was taken on Shell Creek, and the name Buchanan was given to the cabin located there.

In his sketch I. N. Taylor said:

"A little in advance of the Columbus Company, however, were the pioneers of another company who, not intending to go so far, halted on the East bank of Shell Creek, a little above its entrance into the Platte, in range 4 East, and there, on April 27, 1856, Isaac

* According to Jacob Louis.
** Should be November

Albertson and E. W. Toncray became the first settlers of Platte County.* Worthily of the memory of the event and worthily of their personal character, both of these gentlemen as we shall presently see, have since had n honorable position in the county. Together with associates, among them General Eastbrook, Colonel Miller, father of the Omaha Herald Editor, 1876, and others, they thought to found a city, and true to their political instincts, they called the place Buchanan, in honor of the Sage of Wheatland, then Chief Magistrate of the Nation and the head of the American Democracy.

Our Columbus party passed this spot a month later and pressed on to its destination on the Loup. Of course, Gottschalk and Lewis could point out the spot, for they had already been there. The others, too, would readily recognize it, for the river had been described as a clear and placid stream, deep but narrow, and abounding with fish. They halted at noon on the enchanting shore and gazed with delight at the great fish lying far across in the quiet water. Wolfel, as boss carpenter, was enthusiastic and could scarcely wait until dinner was finished before commencing the Loup Bridge and thus sealing the destiny of the new city against its rivals.

Only Kummer was somewhat incredulous about the thing being a river, and he strayed away along the bank. Having rounded one end of the river, legend saith not which end, suddenly he confronted the camp from the opposite bank, at which surprising event the original explorers subsided and the bridge builder withdrew his proposition; and what is now known as "McAlister's Slough" was left alone in its glory.

Proceeding westward eight or nine miles, they came upon the veritable Loup, whose rushing tide and boiling quicksand put to shame the pretensions of McAlister's Pond.

Here they wisely located, neither too far east nor too far west as the whole sequel has proved, for the true crossing of the river on the permanent line of transportation over the plains. A letter of Mr. Kummer to his old home, Columbus, Ohio, describing the new world, aroused the spirit of adventure in many, among them John Rickly, who immediately dropped all and left for the west. Michael Weaver came here in the spring of 1857.

Meantime, the preliminary work went on here. On the twenty-eighth day of May, 1856, the outlines of the town were determined and the whole was soon blocked out. A rough log building was extemporized and roofed with grass. It answered all of their purposes of dwelling, storage, and fortification, and was long known as the Old Company House.

Rickly and perhaps others visited the place in the summer, but October 7, 1856, is put down as the date of the settlement of the second installment: John H. Green, William Distlehorst, Jedediah Mills, and the family of Mr. Wolfel. To Mrs. Wolfel, as the first lady adventurer, the company afterwards gave, for a testimonial, one share in the capital stock of the company, equal to ten average lots in the town.

In December came J. M. "Fred" Becker† and thus was completed the invoice of Buchanan and Columbus, and by adding one lone man and his little boy --- D. Hashberger who that year drove his stake where he yet lives, now Schuyler, was completed the immigration to Platte County in 1856 --- twenty-five souls, all told.

During the autumn of 1856, a change was made in the town plat. A Messrs. Burch and Mitchell, who had established a ferry on the Loup in connection with others in Omaha, laid out a town extending from the ferry and interfering with the other. Finally a compromise was effected. Pawnee City, Burtch and Mitchell's town, was abandoned and Rickly was appointed as assistant Dummer (sic, should be Kummer according to hand-written note) in laying out the new plat. Under this superintendence, Colonel Miller as surveyor of Omaha surveyed the town of which we still have the lithographed and recorded plat.

With these town affairs and with building their first homes (cheap abodes), the colonists were chiefly but not exclusively employed. The government surveys had not yet been made; but conforming as nearly as possible to the sixth principal Meridian, squatters preemption claims were staked out on all sides. Some of the parties yet occupy their original premises. Of these are Gottschalk and his wife, then Mrs. Adam Denk**, Lewis***, Guter and Distlehorst near town, Reinke and Lusche on Shell Creek.

Held had that owned by M. Stenger in 1876, but relinquished to John Reck and J. Held, then settled on Shell Creek. Rickly had what is now Gerrard's Addition, but Charles Curtis jumped him and he retired to the bluff. As for Kummer, his was a jumping history. First he was jumped out of what Lewis now has; then cried out of what Stenger now has; then coaxed out of what the Held estate now has, and finally aided by the whole town in a body, vi et armis, he drove Dr. Stillman from a tract at the bluff which he afterwards abandoned to I. N. Taylor for one dollar cash money, and V. Kummer, alone of all the old settlers, failed to make a land claim. At this date he rather concludes not to pre-empt, homestead or timber claim any of Uncle Sam's farms.

The winter of 1856 was memorable for its deep snow. The memory of Pawnee runneth not back to an other such snow, not hath white man's eye beheld it since. The whole plain was covered all winter to the average depth of three feet. While the drifts in low ground varied from ten to thirty feet. The situation of the little colony was not only trying, it was perilous. In December, a few of them went to Omaha and purchased ox teams and provisions. At the Elkhorn on their return the snow stopped them.

But their friends were seventy-five miles away at Columbus, waiting on the ragged edge of anxiety and hunger. So equipping themselves with snow shoes they piled a portion of their load on a hand sled and hauled it the entire distance. All transportation by teams being

---

* Colfax County.
† J. M. "Fred" Becker came in October, 1856.
** Denck
*** Louis

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