Gage County, Nebraska - Chapter 10, 1918

The lack of convenient markets was perhaps as serious a drawback to the early settler of our county as any of his numerous hardships. At the very beginning, of course, there was no need of markets. On account of drought, hot, dry winds, grasshoppers, or other calamity, it frequently happened that the settler had no surplus, but had to supplement the meager returns from his claim by such food as the streams, woods, and prairies supplied. But in process of time the problem of markets became immediate and insistent.

It was often as necessary to be able to buy in a convenient market as to sell, and for many years here in Gage county merchants were able to supply to only a limited degree the necessary demands of the population. Their stock in trade consisted principally of the bare necessities of life, fiour, bacon, cheese, crackers, sorghum, and the like, and as they would not usually pay cash for farm products, transactions with their customers were largely a matter of barter, - calicoes for eggs, denims for gooseberries or butter. There being virtually no home market where the pioneer could both sell for cash the surplus of his labor and skill and purchase the necessary articles of consumption for himself and family, he was often compelled to seek distant markets in which to sell as well as buy. Thus many of the commonest things in use, as a hat, a bonnet, a slate, a pencil, a spool of thread, farm machinery, tools, clothing, and the like, could often be had only at some Missouri river town or village. This condition of affairs is tolerably well stated by the following extract from a letter written from the interior of the territory of Nebraska as late as January 26, 1866, in which the writer says:

"I will give you, or attempt it, - for nothing could show except the actual living here, - some idea of the life in these western wilds. In the first place we are about as near in the center of nowhere as I care to be. We are fifty miles directly west from Nebraska City, which is the nearest point where one can buy a shoe-string or a spool of thread. Earms here are 'ranches,' cattle yards 'corrals' ; there are no fences of any account, people herd their cattle by day, put them in corrals by night, that is they 'corral' them."

Erom the beginning of our county's history in 1857 until long after the close of the Civil war, until the railroads came, in fact, prices ranged high on all sorts of commodities. This was due to two main causes, namely, a depreciated medium of exchange and the absence of anything like a system of rapid transportation.

In 1854, the year which witnessed the first imigration to our county, the whole country was laboring in the slough of a financial depression induced in part, if not mainly, by a system of state banks, commonly designated "Wildcat," which sprang into being after the dissolution of the historic United States Bank and its branches, by Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, in 1835. These banks were invariably what is known as banks of issue, and their beautifully engraved notes, containing the figure of an Indian, dog, buffalo, tree, cat, or other meaningless device, and intended to circulate as money, were so often utterly worthless as to destroy public confidence in the entire system. Gold and silver were at a tremendous premium and difficult to get. All classes of chattels as well as land had an inflated value when measured by this medium of exchange. In every case the value of a bill depended wholly on the rating of the bank issuing it, and this could be shown only by the "National Business Man's Detector," a publication intended to give the financial standing and condition of every bank of issue in the United States. The public was wholly dependent upon such information as to the solvency of the banks of the entire country.

The working of this system of exchange can be illustrated by a concrete example. An immigrant party to the territory of Nebraska, in 1859, tendered the owner of the ferry boat in payment of its passage charge at the point where they desired to cross the Missouri river, a bill issued by a newly organized bank of Indiana. The bank was not listed in the copy of the "Detector" in the possession of the ferryman, and he refused the transportation until he could telegraph to St. Joseph and receive a reply assuring him of the solvency of the Indiana bank. This took from three o'clock until seven o'clock in the afternoon. All business transactions were necessarily conducted in the same cautious and cumbersome manner. The National Banking Act. of 1864 introduced a stable as well as a uniform monetary system, under the general supervision of ' the government of the United States, and "Wildcat" banking became a thing of the past. But to such a deplorable state had the country fallen that the issuance of the treasury ] notes and the national greenback currency early in the great Civil war, as war measures, acted upon the business world Hke the elixir of life, and this even though the greenback currency itself possessed a purchasing power far below its par value. For example, in 1863 one hundred dollars in gold would purchase tv/o hundred and eighty dollars in greenbacks.

As the products of the soil increased, the pioneers, following a natural law of commerce, turned to the nearest cash market in which to dispose of their surplus. This was the great continental highway which was known to the traders, ranchmen, and overland stage drivers as the "Military Road," but which is now more generally and perhaps more properly designated as the "Oregon Trail." The certainty of good cash prices for almost every description of farm produce and live stock along this great thoroughfare not only relieved the settlers of the dread and fear of want, but also had the effect of steadying and stimulating prices at home, thereby creating a better home market. Through the agency of this great public roadway eastern Nebraska rapidly filled with immigrants and the slow accumulation of wealth and fixed capital set in. This great national highway was so much their expeditions to and from the post the Astorians established a traveled; road over most of the distance between Independence and Astoria. Later this dim trail was followed by the hunters, trappers, and traders whose occupations took them to the northwest, and finally by explorers, surveyors. Mormons, and emigrants making their way to Utah, Oregon, and California.

In 1824 the Great South Pass, at the head of the Sweetwater, a branch of the North Platte river, was discovered, which greatly facilitated western travel. In 1832 Captain Bonneville passed over this route from Inde-

The Oregon Trail has been described as the route of "a national movement" - the migration of a people seeking to avail itself of opportunities which have come but rarely in the history of the world and will never come again. It was a route every mile of which had been the scene of hardship and suffering, yet of high purpose and stern determination.

The known history of the great trail begins with the establishment of the fortified trading post known as Astoria, on the Columbia river, fifteen miles above its mouth, in 1811, by the agents of John Jacob Astor, head of the American Fur Company. This venture failed and in 1813 it was abandoned, but in pendence to California, and it is claimed that his was the first wagon train over the great trail. In 1842 John C. Fremont, but recently commissioned lieutenant of a corps of topographical engineers, by the direction of the federal government, led a surveying expedition from Independence, by way of the Grand Island, in the Platte, to the Great South Pass and the Rocky mountains. This expedition was accompanied by the famous Kit Carson, as guide. It consisted of twenty-seven armed and mounted men, together with the young lieutenant and the twelve-year-old son of Colonel Thomas H. Benton, United States senator from Missouri, whose daughter, Jessie, was Fremont's wife.

Edwin Bryant and party. In 1843 the Oregon immigration set in, and in 1847 began the great ]Mormon immigration to Utah, which lasted for several years. The main body of "Saints,'' some fifteen thousand, led by Brigham Young, set out from Florence, Nebraska, taking the already broken trail up the north side of the Platte river. But from Independence, Westport, and other Missouri frontier points the Mormons followed the southern trail to its confluence with the northern in the neighbor- hood of the Great South Pass. In 1849 came the gold excitement in California and a mighty emigration set in across the plains, along the old trail. The following year General Albert Sidney Johnston, who was afterward commander in chief of the Confederate armies, led an armed force of five thousand men along the trail, from Fort Leavenworth to Utah, to suppress a threatened Mormon insurrection supposed to be brewing at the time, and from this circumstance the eastern portion of this great highway was thereafter frequently -designated as the "Military Road." In 1859 placer gold was discovered in the sands of Cherry creek, where the city of Denver now stands, and the following year, placer gold was discovered also in the neighborhood of Pike's Peak. The immigration that followed these several events in our country's history imparted to the old trail tremendous importance in the settlement and development of the west and northwest.

The actual starting point of the Oregon Trail was St. Louis, the entrepot of western traffic. From there to the mouth of the Kansas the journey could be made by steamboat. But from the Kansas river, the upward course of the Missouri for six hundred miles was almost directly north, which rendered its further navigation for those bound for Oregon, California, and the Rocky mountain regions undesirable. Land expeditions became the recognized mode of travel from this and all upper Missouri river points to the far west and northwest. The Santa Fe Trail also had its origin at the mouth of the Kansas river, some years prior to the beginning of overland travel along the Oregon Trail. To accommodate the travel on both these historic thoroughfares the town of Independence, Missouri, first sprang into existence, and, later, Westport, now the site of Kansas City. Here were located horseshoeing, and repair shops, general outfitting and supply houses, horse and cattle markets, - everything in fact required by the caravan trade to Santa Fe and the Oregon country.

From Independence the two trails were at first identical as far out as the neighborhooil of the town of Gardner, Kansas, a distance of forty-one miles. Here a signboard was erected, with an arrow pointing toward the northwest and bearing the legend "Road to Oregon." Never before or since those memorable days has a wayside sign announced so long or so unusual a journey. Leading on from this point across the country in an almost straight northwest direction, the original trail crossed the Kansas river at Papin's Ferry, '' where the state capital of Kansas now stands, eighty-one miles out from Independence. The general itinerary of the early trail from this point to its destination was as follows: Turkey creek, ninety-five miles; Big Vermillion, 160 miles; Big Blue river, 174 miles; here the ford was first near the mouth of the Little Blue, and eight miles beyond the ford Albert Sidney Johnston's "Military Road" came in, bringing the travel from Leavenworth, Atchison and St. Joseph ; later the ford was diverted to Marysville, where the junction of the two roads occurred. The trail entered Nebraska a trifle east of the southwest corner of Gage county, - at a point now occupied by a monument; then on to Big Sandy, 226 miles, near its junction with Little Blue river; Platte river, 316 miles. The trail now led up the immediate valley of the Platte to the junction of the North and South Forks; Lower Ford, on the South Platte, 493 miles, where the road to the headwaters of the South Platte led away from the trail, up the south bank of the river; Ash Hollow, 513 miles; Court House Rock, 555 miles; Chimney Rock, 571 miles; Scott's Bluffs, 616 miles ; Laramie, 667 miles ; Big Springs, 680 miles; Ford of the Platte, 794 miles ; Poison Spider creek, 807 miles ; Independence Rock, 838 miles; Devil's Gate, 843 miles ; Great South Pass, 947 miles. This is the most celebrated pass in the entire length of the continental divide. Here the trail passed from Atlantic to Pacific waters. Pacific Springs, 952 miles ; Green river, 1014 miles ; Fort Bridger, 1070 miles ; junction with. Sublette's Cutoff, 1146 miles. This cutoff eliminated the wide detour by way of Fort Bridger ; it left the main road at Little Sandy, 969 miles, and, taking a nearly due west course, reached Big Sandy, 975 miles; then Green river, 1021 miles; Bear river, 1093 miles;" Smith's Fork, 1149 miles; Thompson's Fork, 1156 miles; Soda Springs, 1206 miles ; Fort Hall, 1288 miles (on the left bank of the Snake river, the third important station on the trail and the first on Columbia waters) ; American Falls, 1308 miles ; Salmon Falls, 1439 miles ; Fort Boise, 1585 miles; Powder river, 1692 miles; the Grande Ronde, 1736 miles ; Umatilla river, 1791 miles; Columbia river, 1835 miles; The Dalles, 1893 miles ; the Cascades, 1977 miles ; Fort Vancouver, opposite the mouth of the Willamette, head of navigation on the Columbia and properly regarded as the end of the Oregon Trail, 2020 miles.^

From the time of the Astorians (1811-1813) to the beginning of the Oregon immigration (1843) travel along the great trail was largely confined to exploring, surveying, and military expeditions and to parties engaged in hunting, trapping, and trade with the Indians. These stopped short of covering the entire .distance to the Pacific coast by a direct continuous route, and it remained for Dr. Marcus Whit-

In 1836 this remarkable man had gone into the Oregon country as a missionary-physician, under the auspices of the American Board. In 1842 he returned to the east deeply impressed with the great value of Oregon and strongly opposed to the treaty of 1818, which established joint occupation of that territory by England and the United States. He visited Washington for the purpose of acquainting the federal authorities with the advantages that would accrue to this country by the abrogation of the treaty and the acquirement of the

The original route of the Oregon Trail from the south fork to the north fork of the Platte river, by way of Ash Hollow, descends northward from the plain, 3,763 feet above sea level, four miles to the river bottom, at an elevation of 3,314 feet. From the head of the Hollow, the trail, still visible, wound to the left about a mile along the sharp-backed ridges, then dropped by a very steep descent eastward into the Hollow, which here widens into a level valley from a quarter to half a mile wide. The spring, a luxury to the emigrants, still bubbles up strongly a quarter of a mile from the mouth of the Hollow, and at the base of a cliff about 100 feet high, as shown in the middle picture. The cedar and ash trees at one time abundant here all have been cut away. Marks of Fort Grattan, occupied as a post in 1855, are visible near the river north of the east side of the mouth of the Hollow. On the west side of the mouth of the Hollow are the modest gravestones of Rachel Patterson, a girl of nineteen, who died in 1849, and of two infant children.

tmdisputed possession of Oregon. To prove the accessibility of Oregon to settlers he assisted in leading a large party of emigrants, in 1843, from Independence to the Columbia river. In 1844, at the suggestion of the secretary of war, he prepared a bill for passage by congress, which provided for the establishment of military posts along the trail from Papin's Ferry to the Pacific coast, for the protection of emigration. Writing of this measure, to the secretary, in 1844, he says :

"I have since our last interview, been instrumental in piloting across the route described in the accompanying bill and which is the only eligible wagon road, no less than two hundred families, consisting of one thousand persons, of both sexes, with their wagons, amounting in all to more than one hundred and twenty, with six hundred and ninety-four oxen and seven hundred and Seventy-three loose cattle. As pioneers these people have established a durable road from Missouri to Oregon, which will serve to mark permanently the route for larger numbers for each succeeding year.''

On the arrival of these emigrants, in 1843, a provisional government was formed for Oregon, and on the withdrawal by England of her claims, Oregon, in 1848, was erected into a territory of the United States. These results are justly attributable to the indefatigable energy, courage and patriotic ardor of Dr. Marcus Whitman.

"As a highway of travel the Oregon Trail is the most remarkable known to history. Considering the fact that it originated with the spontaneous use of travelers ; that no transit ever located a foot of it; that no level established its grades; that no engineer sought out the fords or built any bridges or surveyed the mountain passes; that there was no grading to speak of nor any attempt at metalling the road-bed ; - and the general good quality of this two thousand miles of highway will seem most extraordinary. Father De Smet, who was born in Belgium, the home of good roads, pronounced the Oregon Trail one of the finest highways in the world. At the proper season of the year this was undoubtedly true. Before the prairies became too dry, the natural turf formed the best roadway for horses to travel on that has probably ever been known. It was amply hard to sustain traffic, yet soft enough to be easier to the feet than even the most perfect asphalt pavement. Over such roads, winding ribbon-like through the verdant prairies, amid the profusion of spring flowers, with grass so plentiful that the animals reveled in its abundance, and game everywhere greeted the hunter's rifle, and finally, with pure water in the streams, the traveler sped his way with a feeling of joy and exhilaration. But not so when the prairies became dry and parched, the road filled with stifling dust, the stream-beds mere dry ravines, or carrying only alkaline water which could not be used, the game all gone to more hospitable sections, and the summer sun pouring down its heat with torrid intensity. It was then that the Trail became a highway of desolation, strewn with abandoned property, the skeletons of horses, mules and oxen, and, alas, too often, with freshly made mounds and head boards that told the pitiful tale of suffering too great to be endured. If the trail was the scene of romance, adventure, pleasure, and excitement.

"The immense travel which in later years passed over the trail carved it into a deep furrow, often with several parallel tracks making a total of a hundred feet or more. It was an astonishing spectacle, even to white men, when seen for the first time. It may easily be imagined how great an impression the sight of this road must have made upon the minds of the Indians. Father De Smet has recorded some interesting observations upon this point.

"In 1851 he traveled, in company with a large number of Indians, from the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers to Fort Laramie, where a great council was held that year to form treaties with the several tribes. Most of these Indians had not been in that section before and were quite unprepared for what they saw. 'Our Indian companions,' says Father De Smet, 'who had never seen but the narrow hunting paths by which they transport themselves and their lodges, were filled with admiration on seeing this noble highway, which is as smooth as a barn floor swept by winds, and not a blade of grass can shoot up on it on account of the continual passing. They conceived a high idea of the countless White Nation, as they express it. They fancied that all had gone over that road and that an immense void must exist in the land of the rising sun. Their countenances testified evident incredulity when I tol'd them that their exit was in no wise perceived in the land of the whites. They styled the route the Great Medicine Road of the Whites.' " 3

The settlement and development of the west produced many changes in the old Trail as known to Fremont, the "Pathfinder," and other early western travelers and explorers. In February, 1859, the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad was completed to St. Joseph, Missouri, and in 1861 it was extended to Atchison, Kansas. During the late '50s and early '60s navigation on the Missouri attained its greatest volume and towns sprung up as by magic along its banks. Each progressive step in the march of western development was reflected in the history of the old highway. Branch lines shot out from Fort Leavenworth, Atchison, St. Joseph, Brownville, Nebraska City, and other Missouri river towns, all converging upon the old trail and intersecting it before it reached Fort Kearney. The most noted of these has already been mentioned as starting from the vicinity of Council Bluffs and threading the valley of the Platte, north of the river, - the avant courier of the Union Pacific Railroad. The non-Mormon travel along this route, though bound to California, Oregon, and the northwest, followed it to Shinn's Ferry or a ford in the immediate neighborhood of Fort Kearney, and, crossing the Platte, continued on up the south side of the river, traversing the Independence trail. As time developed the necessity for diverting travel to the gold fields of Colorado and other sections of the 'great west, branch lines led away from the Oregon Trail, to Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Denver, and the southwest, as far even as Santa Fe, but until the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, in 1867-1868, the Oregon Trail, its cutoffs and numerous branches leading into and away from it, was the sole connected line of travel across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, and the usual means of communication throughout the great plains and Rocky mountain regions of the west, as well as the entire Pacific slope.

No statistics are available which in brief compass illustrate the tremendous importance of the great trail, considered as a unit. The following news item taken from the Dakota City Herald, under date of August 13, 1859, affords some evidence of the volume of travel and emigration on the route from Council Bluffs and Omaha up the Platte valley, at that early date :

"The secretary of the Columbus Ferry Company at Loup Fork informs the Omaha Nebraskian that the emigration across the plains up to June 25th was as follows : 1807 wagons, 20 hand carts, 5401 men, 434 women, 480 children, 1610 horses, 406 mules, 610 oxen, 6000 sheep, had crossed this ferry at that point. This statement includes no portion of the

JMormon emigration, but embraces merely California, Oregon and Pike's Peak emigrants and their stock, all going westward. The returning emigration crosses at Shinn's Ferry, some lifteen miles below the confluence of the Loup Fork with the Platte. Many of the outwardbound emigrants also crossed at the same point, so it is probable that not less than 4000 wagons have passed over the Military Road westward from this city since the 20th of March."

The reader will observe from the foregoing extract that the uses made of the old trail were many and varied. In 1859 the high tide of western travel and emigration had not been reached, but from that year forward to the completion of the Union Pacific Railway, it increased by leaps and bounds. From a dim, narrow roadway, traveled at wide intervals by exploring, surveying, and military expeditions and thin lines of emigration, it expanded under its increasing usefulness into a broad, smooth, hard-beaten highway of great national interest and importance. Unlike the Appian Way and other great roads centering in Rome, the products of military necessity and ambition, the Oregon Trail in all its branches and ramifications was wholly devoted to the arts of peace and the activities of a young and mighty nation.

As a route of emigration its value and usefulness can never be exaggerated. Long before a transcontinental railway was projected, when in fact railway construction was yet in its infancy in this country, it was the means of peopling Utah, Oregon, California, Colorado, and other sections of the great west. Over it travel was maintained across the continent of North America. Travelers bent on business or pleasure and persons engaged in the diplomatic service of foreign countries freely made use of this great thoroughfare, to escape the long, tedious, and often dangerous sea voyage around Cape Horn, to and from the Orient.

The military occupation of the west by our government, and the tremendous emigration that followed it, gave rise to a freighting industry by mule and ox trains unlike anything previously known in our history, and this formed a most conspicuous element in the usefulness of the trail. No statistics are available to give an adequate idea of the tremendous volume of goods annually carried across the plains when this industry was at its maximum. As early as 1861, Nebraska City, by becoming the headquarters of the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell, contractors for the transportation of government freight to the far west, grew quickly into one of the principal outfitting towns on the Missouri river. A census of the freighting business from that point taken for the year 1865 showed the following figures: Men employed in the movement of grain and merchandise westward, 8,385 ; wagons, 7,365; mules, 7,231; oxen, 50,712; freight transported, 31,445,428 pounds' When it is considered that Nebraska City was only one of several great outfitting stations on the Oregon Trail and its branches, that most of the freight was carried long distances over plain and mountain, across unbridged streams, in huge, creaking, linch-pin, thick-tired, canvas-covered wagons, capable of transporting from seven to ten tons of freight and drawn by from five to ten yoke of oxen or more, traveling at the rate of two miles an hour and requiring months to make the round trip, the gigantic proportions of this industry must be apparent to the dullest mind.

The following description of Nebraska City in its pristine days as a terminus of freight traffic is taken from a letter written from near there in 1866, and is fairly representative of the scenes constantly occurring at all Missouri river outfitting towns for freight traffic across the plains :

The streets are not filled with carriages and gay equipages, though I saw some elegant turnouts, but there are huge freight wagons on every street, at every corner ; there are hundreds of oxen and mules attached to them. Often ten yoke of oxen to a wagon, - six span, oftener four, of mules driven with one line. There is heard the lumbering of these "prairie schooners," the bellowing of oxen, braying of mules, cracking of long whips, which for me is a show of itself, to see the dexterity with which the drivers use them. There is the hallowing, yelling of teamsters, mingled

The lower view represents the freighting train known as "Bull of the Woods," owned by Alexander and James Carlisle. From a photograph taken on Main street, Nebraska City, looking east from Sixth street and loaned by Mr. O. C. Morton. This train consisted of twenty-five wagons with six mules to each wagon, and was considered one of the finest outfits known to freighters.

with more oaths than I have ever heard before in all my life together. Everything is high in this prairie land. My mother sells some of her butter for sixty cents per pound, none less than fifty cents, and that at home; cheese thirty cents and thirty-five cents; and so on with everything. The great amount of travel on the road half a mile from us makes all the market one needs at present. Trains passing with thirty wagons (twenty- four or eighteen, those being the usual numbers) are or have been until recently of almost daily occurrence, - some going to the mountains, others going to the states. It is also the stage route (or one) of Ben Holliday's express through to California, so that we have a daily mail one day from the west, the next from the east. It seems odd in such a new country, so devoid of almost everything civilized, to see the coach daily, going and coming.

As a highway for the Overland stage from the Missouri river to the Pacific coast the great trail performed a most interesting and a most important service to the American people. Light Concord coaches were usually required for this service, and with the rapid growth of the west, the business ultimately attained huge proportions.

From 1850 down to the date when the old trail ultimately fell into disuse the overland stage was largely devoted to the carrying of the mails. The carrying of passengers and express packages also formed important items of its receipts. At first monthly trips were made, then semi-monthly, and finally - when the overland-stage business fell into the hands of Ben HolHday, who in many respects was one of the most remarkable men of his day - a stage service was evolved in which stages ran daily on fast and schedule time from Atchison, Kansas, to Placerville, California, in the remarkably short period of seventeen days, carrying mail and passengers each way.

An important incident to the old highway was the pony express, a movement which originated, in 1860, with William H. Russell, of Leavenworth, Kansas. It was a system of mounted couriers, wholly devoted to the private transmission of letter-mail, newspapers, telegraph messages, important government dispatches, bank drafts, and the like. It followed the St. Joseph branch of the Overland trail to Kennekuk, forty-four miles out from the Missouri river, where it intersected the main Independence line, and thereafter followed the old trail to Fort Kearney, thence on up the Platte valley to old Julesburg, where it forded the South Fork, followed the old Mormon trail up Lodge Pole creek, thence through the Great South Pass to Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City, and on to Sacramento, where it connected with navigation on the Sacramento river to San Francisco. The trip from its eastern terminus, at St. Joseph, Missouri, to its western terminus usually required eight days, and the return trip the same number of days. It was inaugurated at five o'clock in the afternoon of the 3d day of April, 1860, with many demonstrations of satisfaction throughout its entire course across mountain and plain. At San Francisco cannon were fired, flags displayed, speeches made, flowers distributed, and at both terminals crowds gathered to witness the departure of the first daring rider of the pony express. The horses selected for this service were hardy and fleet plains stock. The equipment consisted of a strong, well made saddle and a mail sack of the old-fashioned saddle-bags pattern, and an emergency lariat. The rider was booted and spurred. A leathern holster on either side of the pommel of his saddle carried a navy revolver. No time was wasted at the stations where changes of horses, and often of riders, were made. Usually the rider found his mount already groomed, saddled, and held by an assistant awaiting his arrival. He had only to change his holsters and mail bags from one saddle to the other, mount the fresh steed and away with the speed of the winds. At stations where riders were relieved, the fresh rider would be awaiting the incoming man, mounted and ready to fly on his journey.

This service lasted approximately eighteen months and was discontinued only when the telegraph line, of which it was the avmit courier, reached Fort Kearney, in 1861. It was by far the most picturesque feature of overland travel along the wonderful old trail, and no other business venture of the great plains region had a more daring or romantic history

This storied old highway was reached from Beatrice and other sections of Gage county mainly by the Brownville road. This branch of the overland trail crossed the Big Blue river at the old Market street ford; it then swung northward to the river, and, taking the course of the present highway to a point about two miles west of the Cub creek crossing, it left the creek and started on its course across the high prairie on what was known as Twentytwo Mile Ridge; it struck Little Sandy creek river, near where the town of Alexandria i.', now located. Four miles above Hackney's was the Kiowa stage station ; six miles beyond the Kiowa was the Oak Grove ranch, located near the dreaded Narrows, a point on the Little Blue river where the prairies terminated abruptly in low, steep bluffs, forcing the travel on a narrow strip of land along the river bank. A little east of the Narrows was the ranch of the ill-fated Ubanks family. Gomstock's ranch was a short distance above this pass, and beyond Comstock's was the Little Blue stage station. Here the trail left the river and struck at Thomas Helvey's ranch, and a mile further on to the west, at Shumway's ranch, it intersected the main trail. Three miles west of Shumway's, at Patterson's ranch. Big Sandy was crossed, and the traveler entered the stirring scenes and pulsing life of the great national highway.

At Big Sandy, besides Patterson's ranch, there were Slaughter's ranch, D. C. Jenkins' ranch, George Weisel's ranch, and some others. In addition to these there was a stage station, kept by Edward Farrell. From Farrell's station on the Big Sandy, the trail, a broad, smooth highway, led almost due west across Eighteen Mile Ridge, past Thompson's stage station, twelve miles out from Farrell's, to the great Hackney ranch, on the Little Blue out across the Nine Mile Ridge. At Buffalo ranch it returned to the Little Blue and continued up that stream eight miles to Pawnee ranch. Four miles beyond was Spring ranch, an overland stage station, where the trail climbed a long, steep hill to the high prairie, and led on to Thirty-two Mile Creek, a station located on a little stream of that name, eight miles southwest of the present city of Hastings. From Thirty-two Mile Creek it ran in a northwesterly direction through a collection of low, rounded sand hills to the Platte river bottom, where it intersected the Nebraska City branch of the trail at Hook's ranch, nine miles this way from Fort Kearney.

or three days' travel, at the ranches and stations along the old trail. Money was abundant, prices good, and the excitement, romance, and thrilling adventure afforded by the trail was an added inducement to draw the pioneers and their sons to this traffic.

A person who now travels by rail or motors over country roads from any portion of southeastern Nebraska to the site of old Fort Kearney, in the general direction held by the Oregon Trail or its branches, encounters evidence of wealth and refinement on every hand. He sees a succession of thriving cities and villages, connected by rail, telegraph, and telephone lines. Beautiful homes, smiling countrysides, and a happy, intelligent, and thriving population greet him on every hand. To such a traveler the condition of life which this same section of country presented along the old continental cross-country highway from about 1850 to 1867 would be impossible of visualization. To the traveler in those heroic days the only signs of civilized life were the old highway and its ever shifting kaleidoscopic population. The road itself constituted not the least wonderful of the objects which he encountered. It led across the naked prairie from the Missouri river, - wide, hard, and bare. It followed no definite course, unless a generally northwesterly direction could be so designated. It crossed bridgeless streams, traversed localities of great natural beauty and vast prairie meadows where millions of buffalo, elk, deer, and antelope found abundant pasturage during the greater portion of the year. On either side, stretching away in all directions, was the uninhabited and apparently limitless prairie. The few stage stations and ranches that marked its course served to emphasize the emptiness and desolation of the country through which it passed.

This great thoroughfare was traveled by as heterogeneous a mass of people as could be found anywhere in the world, - merchants, capitalists, freighters, prospectors, miners, hunters, trappers, traders, soldiers, Indians, emigrants. Mormons, gamblers, adventurers, lileasure-seekers, tourists, and the representatives of foreign nations, - passing from east to west or from west to east, all in teeming, restless activity. From the top of a Concord stage-coach, drawn by three span of horses selected for this service on account of their speed and endurance, and rushing ahead on schedule time at the rate of ten or more miles per hour, pausing at the stations only long enough to change jaded for fresh teams, the traveler might go for days without being out of sight of long trains of huge wagons drawn slowly by from six to ten yoke of oxen or half as many mules.

The pioneers either hauled their produce to the ranches or stations on the trail or sold at home, at remunerative prices, to those who were regularly engaged in freighting along the trail. Among these were Samuel Jones and his son William R. Jones, Peter Hanna, John Dunbar, Jefferson B. Weston, Joseph Saunders, David Kilpatrick, Nathan Blakely, William Blakely, Thomas and Joseph Kline, Volney Whitmore, George Whitmore, M. C. Butler, J. W. Kelly, Gilbert T. Loomis, Alvah Ayers, and many others whose names are ,not readily recalled. The ranches along the old trail were kept by a fearless class of frontiersmen, whose business it was to supply the freighters, soldiers, stage-drivers, emigrants, and travelers with provender for their stock, and for themselves food and drink, - quite often drink. Amongst the Gage county people who were engaged from time to time in the ranching and stage-driving business were Albert Holliday, who for many years kept the Hackney ranch ; Charles N. Emery, first a stage-driver and then a keeper of Pawnee and other ranches; Jim Bainter; "Big" Fred and "Little" Fred Roper; Joseph B. Roper; Joseph Milligan; William E. Mudge; William Hess; Asa and John Latham; Robert Emery; Carl Emery; John Gilbert; Ray Grayson; William Blakely, and George Hurlburt.

This storied highway is now a thing of the past. The part it played in the settlement and development of the great west may never be fully understood or rightly appreciated. Over the greater part of the distance traversed by it there is left scarcely a trace. In a few years regions of our country, the far west and norththere will be none who could mark its course, west, what the Union Pacific Railroad, of But as long as men note and love the history which it was the precurser, became on its of their country, this one fact must always re- completion over half a century ago. main, - for nearly three score years, beginning There are highways born, the old roads die -