EARLY HISTORY OF FRONTIER COUNTY NEBRASKA

EARLY HISTORY AND REMINISCENCE
OF
FRONTIER COUNTY
NEBRASKA

In the years of 1886 and '87 the Holdrege Branch of the B. & M. built a railroad through this county. This was a great stimulus to the agricultural development of the county. Every farmer near the line of the road could sell corn, hay and surplus provisions at good prices. Corn sold readily at forty cents per bushel, and everything else in proportion.

We, who had been going forty miles to trade and taking three days to make a trip, thought then and still think that the railroad was one of the greatest blessings that ever came to the county. It brought to the farmer merchandise, and laid it almost at his door as cheaply as he before could purchase it forty miles away. It placed farm implements in easy reach; it enhanced the value of (39) all the land several dollars per acre; it built up four flourishing towns, viz., Eustis, Moorefield, Curtis and Maywood; and best of all to the farmer, it made an outlet for his fat stock in Omaha, in a few hours after it left his pens.

From G. W. Crosby, general freight agent at Omaha, we learn that in 1892 there were shipped from Frontier County 1469 cars of grain and 258 cars of live stock; in 1893 841 cars of grain and 388 cars of live stock. In considering these numbers, we must remember that our county is new, that much of the land is unused either for grazing or agricultural purposes. All over this county you may see ten-acre lots of young timber; these are not only an ornament to our already beautiful landscape, but will soon furnish a supply of timber and help increase the rainfall of our county. Far-seeing ways the legislature that passed the Timber Culture Act, for men planted to secure the patent to their lands, who would not have planted for ornament or usefulness.

During the short period that has elapsed since our county has become an agricultural one, it has made about as much advancement as could be expected under all the conditions and difficulties with which it has had to contend. Below will be given the record of 1893:

Personal property valuation	$ 310,275.00
Real estate	921,386.00
Town property	53,806.00
Railroad property	122.094.00
Total	$1,407,571,00
Taxes raised	$ 64,656.35

By comparison we find the valuation of property in 1893 was four and one-half times the valuation of 1883 and that the number of polls was more than six times as great. We now have 108 school districts, 115 schools, 3328 children of school age, seventy-two frame schoolhouses, three log and twenty-seven sod buildings. Our teachers now number 120. The valuation of our district property is $42,616.68, which is ten times as much as in 1884. Seeing what progress we have made in the past, and knowing the enterprising spirit of our citizens, what could we predict for Frontier County but a glorious future?

The forty-niner, as he slowly wended his way across these plains, never dreamed they would become great centers of (40) civilization. But the pioneers came in from the crowded East, subdued the soil; the railroads attacked the wilderness; towns and cities which the mirage had prefigured have become an accomplished fact. The millions of buffaloes that sometimes impeded the movement of trains have been replaced by tens of thousands of graded cattle, while the unexampled yield of the products of the soil of the Wild West is fast becoming the granary of the United States.

The great achievements of Frontier County have not, like Aladdin's palace, been accomplished at a wish or by magic wave of the mystic wand, but by sturdy, earnest and laborious toil. We therefore cherish a deep and growing pride in the history and progress, socially and financially, of our county.

Finis

SUNSET

When sunset sheds its molten mellow rays
Of liquid gold spilling upon the plain,
Flowing from crimson fountains in the sky,
The heart is filled with rapture; if we sigh
At man's failure to measure Heaven's days
In recompense, more earnestly we gaze,
Then with true vision paradise regain,
And strength to grasp anew the higher ways
Of God's creation, and the meaning of:
"The word was spoken and His will was done."
Though man vainly searches for a source
And ending, looks for heaven high above,
Yet Truth and Life and Love are always one,
As timeless as the great Creative Force.

--Boyd Perkin