O'NEILL.

     No town in north Nebraska is more widely or favorably known than O'Neill. She has never boomed, but despite many adverse circumstances, over which she had no control at first but gradually conquered, she has steadily increased in population and wealth until now the hamlet of a hundred souls at best in 1880 is a city of 2,200. O'Neill is everywhere recognized as a winner, a reputation well earned and one that will be maintained for all time.
     O'Neill was founded by and named after the gallant Fenian soldier, General John O'Neill. The first settlers came here in May, 1874. The town was originally platted and called Holt City, but was afterward changed by Colonel Noteware, immigration agent for the State, to O'Neill City, the same year the first settlers came here. The "city" has since been dropped. The general died in 1879, in which year O'Neill was made the permanent county seat. The oldest of the children, familiarly called "Johnnie" by everyone is a promising young man, residing now at Cedar Rapids, Neb., where he owns a drugstore and is prosperous. The rest of the family reside here, Mrs. O'Neill having married again, her name now being Coughlin. Her youngest daughter by the general. Miss Kittie, is at present a clerk in the postoffice, a position she fills very acceptably.
      The town is situated in the center of the county north and south and six miles east of the center east and west; is the county seat of a young "empire" as it were, and has a class of business men and citizens who will leave no stone unturned to make a great city of the place. The town site is the most beautiful along the valley or in this part of the State, being situated on a gently rising slope from the river up. The town site proper covers a quarter of a section of land, but additions have already been laid out that make it one and a half by two miles square.
     The city is well built up and streets well attended to and in good repair. An average year in building will call for an expenditure of $120.000. In 1891, $150,000 was spent in erecting both residences and stores.
     Her banks did in 1891, a $390,000 business, while her mercantile establishments sold in the same time nearly half a million dollars' worth of goods. The wholesale business with the Black Hills and the western part of the State increases every year.
      In educational and religious advantages the town is not behind any of her sister cities. She has a fine, brick school house of six rooms and two ward schools. The Catholic Academy cost $16,000; it is under the charge of the Sisters of Charity.
     In churches she has the Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist. The first has a seating capacity of 600 people.
     O'Neill has a $15,000 school house, $20,000 court house, $10,000 Catholic Church and pastorate, a $25.000 bank block and a $10.000 bank block a dozen residences ranging from $3.000 to $6,000 and a hundred worth from $1,000 to $2,500, four banks, two abstract companies, three large dry goods establishments, three hardware stores, a half dozen grocery stores, two fine drug stores, three harness shops. three meat markets, six hotels and several restaurants, four newspapers, six livery stables a dozen or more lawyers and real estate dealers, three practicing physicians, two bakeries, two shoe shops, one shoe store, two lumber yards, five blacksmith shops, two wagon shops, two furniture stores, two implement houses, two public halls, two halls owned by secret orders, two jewelry stores, twenty-five or thirty carpenters, a dozen painters, as many plasterers and masons. three barber shops, one cigar factory, five saloons, one marble shop, one gun shop, one laundry, five hog buyers, two grain buyers, auctioneers, a goodly share of laborers, and in fact almost everything imaginable, including a few cranks on general principles, also an active Board of Trade composed of the leading men of the city. Among the much needed enterprises and the ones which could be profitably established here are a grist mill, a foundry and machine shops, a beet sugar factory and a starch factory. The soil of the country surrounding the town is a rich, sandy loam with a clay subsoil and especially adapted to the raising of corn, wheat, oats, rye. barley, buckwheat, potatoes and all kinds of vegetables. For stock raising it cannot be beaten. Now is a good time to invest money here, for lands are cheap because the country is new.

HOLT COUNTY.

     Holt is one of the largest counties in the State, and contains 1,540.000 acres. and is larger than the State of Delaware. The land consists of the Elkhorn and Niobrara Valleys and the low divide between them. Particularly speaking five per cent. of the county is bottom land, twenty-five per cent, table land, four per cent. rolling, and thirty per cent, draws, gulches, and sand hills. The sand hills are not entirely sterile as is shown by the various grasses growing on them. An analysis shows potash, soda, alumina and lime in considerable quantities. The black loam covering most of the county varies from eighteen inches to six feet in depth. The subsoil varies from this only in containing less organic matter, while still deeper is limestone and sandstone. Along the Niobrara River these crop out and are quarried and used for building purposes.
     Holt County produces many varieties of grass among which are the buffalo, blue joint, red top, chess, wild oats and bunch grass. The

buffalo grass grows more or less all over the county. In the Elkhorn Valley it is very scarce, but along the Niobrara and in the west of the county it is very abundant. As the annual rainfall becomes more copious it slowly but surely recedes to the westward. As the buffalo steadily diminishes the blue joint and other varieties as steadily increase. A species of wild oats or needle grass affords excellent early pasture, and it is noticeable that the chess grass grows above a clay subsoil.
     In the northern part of the county there are considerable cottonwood, basswood, scrub oak of good size, cedar and walnut along the creeks, and quite an amount of white ash. Wild grapes, raspberries, gooseberies (sic) and plums abound, the latter especially have a flavor as fine as the cultivated variety.
     The land is as a rule better adapted to stock and sheep raising than to the cultivation of cereals. though in certain portions farmers obtain thirty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, corn fifty bushels, barley thirty, and oats forty. Sugar beet cultivation is now one of the established industries of the county. The county has an abundant supply of water. The Elkhorn and its many tributaries water the southern portion and the Niobrara and its tributaries the northern. By digging nevermore than thirty feet, plenty of good soft water is obtainable. Cisterns are never required.
     Ten years ago there was scarcely a frame house in the county, the "soddy" or log house being the rule; now they have all given place to neat frame houses, and other improvements on the farms make another evidence of the

great advancement of the county. The figures quoted for the valuation, it will be remembered, are the assessed valuation, while the actual value is four times as much. It is, therefore, safe to say that the actual valuation in Holt County is not less than ten millions of dollars. In every respect--in the matter of schools, churches, business, farming, etc., the county has steadily increased and developed in a degree alike surprising and gratifying. Even in climate and soil Holt County has improved wonderfully, the climate being somewhat modified in all respects and the soil greatly improved; much of it that ten years ago was considered worthless is now quite valuable and becoming very productive.
     In 1880 the population of the county was 3,100 and the valuation of taxable property $85,000
     For 1892 statistics show as follows:

     A truly wonderful change has been brought about since the advent of the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad in 1881, and

now that we have secured a second road, the Pacific Short Line, the change in the next few years will be even more wonderful.
     The low lands along the Elkhorn River afford thousands of acres of. the very best hay land and is especially suited for dairy farms and the rearing of stock. The land rises from the river bottom to the table land with a gentle slope and is not broken by bluffs. In the southern portion of the county is a small area known as the "sand hills." This is not well adapted to agriculture but is just the thing for stock ranches. Among these hills are numberless valleys affording abundance of hay and numerous lakes which abound with fish.

REPRESENTATIVE BUSINESS FIRMS AND MEN OF O'NEILL

     R. R. DICKSON & CO., Lawyers, and Title Abstracters.--The firm identified with the growth and welfare of O'Neill and northern Nebraska is that of R. R. Dickson & Co.. successors to T. V. Golden & Co., established in 1884. Mr. Dickson is a native of Wisconsin. He studied law with Mr. Rice of Osage. Ia., being admitted to the bar here in 1887. The firm also are title abstractors and have a complete set of abstract hooks. Terms reasonable and absolute accuracy guaranteed, for which they have given a $10,000 bond, as required under the law. Correspondence solicited.
     Mr. Dickson is a K. P. and is most diligent in working at his profession and is well read in the details of law.

     M. F. HARRINGTON, Attorney at Law.--One whose success in the practice of his pro-

fession has placed him among the legal lights of this county is M. F. Harrington. He is a native of Canada, and studied law here with Judge Kinkaid, being admitted to the bar in 1885 at West Point, Nebraska. He has built up a very extensive practice in this city and vicinity. Mr. Harrington is generally recognized as a gentleman of scholarly attainments, and gives abundant promise of being heard from in the future.

     DR. B. T. TRUEBLOOD, Eye and Ear Surgeon.--One of the talented physicians of northern Nebraska is Dr. B. T. Trueblood. He is a native of Indiana and was raised in Iowa. The doctor graduated in 1879 as a Master of Science from Ann Arbor; also from the same university as a Doctor of Philosophy in 1880. In 1885 he graduated from the State University of Iowa, and in 1890 took a post-graduate course for the eye and ear in New York. He has chiefly become celebrated owing to the many radical cures he has made in the eye and ear, which, together with fitting glasses, are his specialty. That the doctor is amply cut out for his chosen profession has been plainly shown by the flattering success he has met with during his residence here.

     PFUND & WAGERS, Groceries, Flour, Fruits and Provisions.--The noteworthy mercantile firm of O'Neill is Pfund & Wagers. The premises occupied are 22x70 feet in extent. The varied stock consists of groceries, flour, fruits and provisions; best in quality and moderate in price.
     Mr. Pfund was born in Switzerland and is an I. O. O. F., K. P. and A. O. U. W. He has been in groceries here five years. Mr. Wagers, born