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Febr. 14, 1925 Miller L.L.
LA:collections of a Pioneer
By C.L. Ray
Forty years ago Nebraska was decidedly different from what it
is now. During the latter part of August 1879, I had to stop at Hast-
ings for a few hours and met an old acquaintance who asked me to oomm
out to his ranch at the forks of the Republican where he was at work.
Hastings was only a little town at that time, and it was only a block
or two from the post off toe before one reached the open fields. The
railroad run one passenger train each may then and the entire train
consisted of only about two coaches. I told some one that I was going
into the oow country and the man to whoa I was talking, a stranger from
northern Illinois said he would rather go among Indians than among the
cowboys.
I took the train to Red Cloud where we stayed over night, going
on te Bloomington by freight the next day. This branch had been built
to Naponee the year before but the trains did not run beyond Blooming-
ton as a regular thing.
At Bloomington we found a farmer boy who had been hauling wheat
to market. :le rode with him to Republican City, putting up at the
Gage House for the night. The next morning we started on foot up the
Prairie Dog for Oberlin.
had gone but a short distance when we came
across a seventeen-year old boy who lived west of Oberlin and had been
down to Mankato Kansas, to market some wheat. We rode with him to
Oberlin. There were not many bridges on the Dog and not mem houses to
pass. That few there were, of course were built of sod. We reached
Long Island that night. A new grist mill was being built there and
only three or four houses comprised tbo town at that time. Norton, was
a town of about 200. Two miles west of Norton we moped for tho seeamd
night.
The next day the boy took the divido south of the Dog to save a
long detour by following the creek. 114 traveled all day without coming
to a house or water hole obi's* we could get a drink for ourselves or the
teems NO stopped at a dugout near the road, but were told that the
settler had to haul water five miles and had none to spare for the teem.
However he gave us a drink for ourselves. Mum within throe or four
miles of Donator (lentos, we eamo upon quite a settlement 'which extended
slier into town. This vas quite small and vas mostly of sod houses.
Very fortunately, hammer, they had dug a well there 100 feet deep
which enabled us to eater our thirst/ horses. Ii west into camp b.
sift a straw stook mar a hotel *Joh was kept by a Friona womon4
Although it was only the first wet* in September those. MA a
*old wind blowing so we piled strew around the wagon undo:, whisk we
gado our bed for this night. The flout day was Sunday and quite cold.
We crossed over to Oberlin that morning. There vas some earn on the
creek bottom and evidently some ono had been making free with it in
true western styli., far one man had posted a notice which expressed
with much profanity tho horrible fate of toy one who took more of it.
At that time Oborlin claimed a population of 200, mostly young men and
womom4 It had been just a year since the Irdi&ns bad gone through west
of merlin and had massaored most of the 3141214 We were told that forty*
two had been buried in Oberlin after the Indians passed. The Indians
had remained peaceful until they sans to the Prairie Dog. The first
one had forgotten, but who was an his nay to the ,lad °Mee atAirwing
and two neighbor girls who were riding with bin. They had men Indiana
before and theught **thing of it, whoa suddenly the Indians shot the
nen and pulled the girls from the vegans
The ptcesedinge were seen from a dugout about a half mile mey
vhere just a few nixotirs before a etwoman from Tense had gone for dinners
Mmediately they blockaded the door of the hut. The Indians *me and
yelled and dameed all over the roof. One getting braver than the rest
entered the pamagemy leading to the door, when he vas shot and killed
by the stemmas The Indians then left and spread up gado= the valley,
killing all anus, over fourteen years of age, so Ivas told, and sic.'
treating the worm and ohildren. At one house visited there were a
nether and five shildrin. The Indians were firing the bedding and
throwing the dhildren into the fire, when one Indian ems intend said
in perfeetiy geed Inglieh„ You let these ihildren alone. told you
before we began this raid, I would have netMAng to do with it unless
you'd let the worm and ohildren alone.' "Oh but didn't I feel good
shin I heard that," one of the girls said, when telling it later.
Many of the settlers insisted that there were white nen in the gong of
Indians. Om Indian, a fourtomoyear old bey was left behind seethew.
Two weeks later he was seen to *reel under a rooks when, for two or
three hours he kept off the enraged settlers with only a bone for a
weapons But they final1y killed hirls
At Oberlin we not three may two of 'hose names I have forgotten.
The name of one of the men I believe was Koovan* and they ware on their
way up the Republican river on a Buffalo hunt. Wi rode along with them'.
The first night we stayed at Rawlins Center* which consisted at the time
of about three sod houses. We stayed one night with a bachelor* who had
a bed made of stakes driven into the wall on one side and supported an
the other by stakes driven into the ground with brush for a mattress.
This man told me if I lived in the country long enough I would learn to
carry my bed with me, which I later found to be true* but at the time
I thought perhaps he did not watt to share his bed with me.
From Rawlins Center to Attwood was across the divide and no
house was on the way. At the forks of the Beaver we found a tent and
partly built store building, which I was told was Attwood. The town
was later moved up the creek a mile and when I saw it two years later
claimed a population of 200. Passing up the divide between the middle
and south Beavers there were no settlers but we met a few would be
homesteaders who had been out to take claims. And here we came to a
laid out town* and a board nailed to a stake proclaimed the fact that
it was Greenback City. The only inhabitants were the lot stakes and
grasshoppers. It must have been near where McDonald now is. Thirty...
five or forty miles west of Attwood we came to the nod house of George
Dunn on the banks of the Big timber. Here we camped for the night.
We had not been there long before two little boys came out of
the plum patch near by. They said they thought we were Indians and
had run into the bushes to hide. Dunn's sod house was on the old Wallace
trail from North Platte to Fort Wallace.
The nest morning we went north on the trail to the South Fork
of the Republioan. A cowboy who belonged to the "25" ranch, whioh was
located in the bluffs near where the Benkelman high school is now los.
(noted, happened along. John Anderson was the name of this first cow-
boy with wham I became aequainted. Al]. of this country, and its ways
were new ,o me, but I did not see any of the dangerous things that had
been pictured to me by my informant at Hastings. We found the cowboys
generous and =oh more courteous in their treatment of women than the
fellows who lived in "the states" as these westerners called the oast.
They considered it very discourteous to swear or smoke in the profane*
of ladies and one reason they gave for not wanting women around the
ranch was the fear that they would swear in their presence.