Evening Star Newspaper, May 17, 1931, Page 81

v ' THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 17, 1031, RICHEST TOWN IN AMERICA It Isn’t Nezo York, but Hyannis, Nebr.; Population, 384; a Sand Hill Cow Tozon, Where Life Is Simple and Democratic. BY VOLTA TORREY. ARM relief? Prohibition? Hard times? Hyannis, Nebr., doesn’t worry about the Nation’s great problems. For Hyannis is a cow town. So rich that one year it didn’t have a single de- linquent taxpayer. So permanently pros- perous that the local bank hadn’t foreclosed on & mortgage sinc: 1897. So democratic that every $50-a-month cow hand calls his million- aire boss by his first name. And wholly free from 1eformers. Population 384 in each of the last two cen- suses, Hyannis broadcast the boast once that it was the wealthiest per capita town in the world. No one disputed it. But so many blue-sky stock salesmen came a running and so many pleas for loans and gifts were received that Hyannis shut up. Since then, Hyannis money has opened a couple of new banks in nearby villages, scattering the community hoard over a wider territory. A few figures will give you the picture better. Hyannis is the county seat of Grant County. Grant County contains about 560,000 acres, divided into 150 farms or ranches, which would make the average farm about 3,500 acres. The land is valued at about $10,000,000 and the cattle on the land at about $3,000,000, but as the human population of the county is only 1,400, the average per capita wealth is nearly $10,000, which is a record for any county to shoot at. And when you further discover that less than 100 people in the county filed income tax re- turns, you get the real picture; less than 100 people, worth on an average of $150,000 apiece, have most of the wealth. HIS town is just a wide spot on a gravel é road. Tan sand hills hem it in on all sides. ~ And the costly homes of its rich seem strangely * misplaced, for there are few trees, no land- scaping, and no paved boulevards in Hyannis. If you get off the train and tell the station sgent, whose home is the second floor of the little red depot, that you want to see the sand "w hills, he may go to the phone and call up Harry. “ g “How’'s that airplane of ours, Harry?” he will ask. And if Harry says it's all right, the agent 4 Will explain, “There’s & fellow here who wants # to see the hills and I thought we might take “ him up.” 3 on out, is Harry’s answer. So the rail- Harry’'s wife, Neva, is a girl from “the city” (Grand Island, Nebr.), and didn't think she would like the sand bills, but she finds them pretty nice, after all. And Neva herself takes care of the five-months-old boy she and Harry have adopted. She says the sand hills “get you” once you get used to them. ‘The sand hills look even more barren, yet at the same time more beautiful, from the air y/ v €% - The main stem of Hyannis, just a wide spot in the gravel road, but everybody there says it's a great place to Live. Thy court house is seen in the center, at the end of the wide street. than from the ground. There is a lake in nearly every valley and from the lakes ducks sometimes rise in such great flock that the swish of their wings sounds like thunder. No foaling. The lakes are fine to swim in, too. And as for fish . . .! If they ever get scarce, the ranchers will buy more to throw in. Sportsmen are welcome visitors if their atti- tude is right. If it isn’t, they don’t have much fun. Gov. Charley Bryan of Nebraska, when he was an ex-governor a couple years ago, sent word to one of the rich men of Hyannis that bhe was coming out for some hunting and wanted to be met at the train. The message sounded a wee bit too much like a command. When Bryan’s train pulled in, no one was there. He carried his bags up to the hotel him- self. And it was several hours before he got a hunting party organized. That hotel, incidentally, is the pride of the town. It was originally a saloon. One day, the old-timers say, some cowboys from one ranch were occupying rooms when the boys !mrzm another outfit arrived to do a little drink- The gang downstairs got hilarious and started shooting. They fired at the ceiling so as not to hurt anybody. The bullets went through the ceiling and far beyond. The hurried ex- odus which followed gave the crowd downstairs such a thrill that they're still laughing about it. The hotel got so bad, finally, that the rich ranchers organized a company to take it over, Now it is as comfortable and expensive as a first-class city hostelry. The cattlemen have taken over several other Hyannis business con- cerns the same way. When they bought the butcher shop they hired a man named Rocke- feller to run it. ARRY MINOR'S father, Joe Minor, is the hero of the town. Banker Charles Finne- gan tells one of the many stories about him. Finnegan was a farmer from Down East and not very well off when he landed in the sand hills to make a new start in life, He had been keeping books in the bank at Hyannis just long enough to get well acquainted when Minor made him a proposition. It was Everyb —— the brandings which are held early n the Summer. @laideth Abbot, millionaire’s daughter, attends she village high school. that he get hold of a certain piece of land and plek up a certain bunch of cattle to put on it. #But I haven't any money, and I don’t know anything about ranching,” Finnegan protested. “I've got the money,” Minor retorted, “and I-know all you need to know.” “Well, if you're putting up the money and doing all the work, why let me in on it?” “Oh, I just like to see a fellow make a little money.” Pinnegan made a little—enough to expand into a fortune. “These people like to make money for some- body else just as much as they do to make it for themselves,” the banker asserts. *“That's why I've stayed here.” And most of the other wealthy villagers talk the same way. Take the ease of Mrs. Helen Hager. Her father was & rancher but sent hig family to Omaha so the children could go tg school. Helen was just out of high school when he died. She was only 20, but she undertook to run the ranch. “I only intended to stay six months er so, then sell out,” she admits. “But I'm still here." She bossed the ranch in person for a decady and built up one of the finest herds of cattlq and most valuable pieces of property in ths hills. Did she ever have trouble with the cow- boys? Never. They were too gallant. “I used to think I was missing a lot of ths fun in life,” she muses, “but I took responsi- bility and I've enjoyed it. ‘These sand hills ar: like the desert. They fascinate you after you live in them for a while. And there's soma- thing about ranching that makes you stick by it.” Another woman rancher is Mrs. Essie Davis When her husband died, she leased the ranch to a Denver commission company, but the leaze ran out this Spring and she came back from the West Coast to run the show herself. \ F the Mannings, a wealthy, prominent Hy. annis family, there have been four genera-- tions of ranchers. Sid Manning came into the sand hills from Colorado, where he had been toting a six-shooter since he was 12 years oild, helping his father drive cattle north from Mex« ico. He is still on the job, directing big opera« tions and his wife does her own housework yet. There's a Monigomery-Ward catalogue on theis living room table. Sid Manning’s son, George, lives next door."’ If you call on him on Sunday afterncon yow'll probably find him snoozing in a big easy chair before the fireplace with his fancy boots on. " A BBOTT'S 15-year-old daughter, who looks likce & million dollars, attends the very likely to see her any school day wearing an old sweater, walking across the tracks and up the sandy lane to the school house. y Related to the Abbots are the Gentrys. When old J. M. "Mac” Gentry, who has ridden .out. and roped many & wild gray wolf in his day, sits in the parlor to talk to friends, he pulls an’ empty cbair up in front of him and clinches his Jegs around it as if he were astride a horse. He tells, reluctantly at first but with growing enthusiasm, about the great fire which once swept the ranges, reaching forward like a mon- strous hand with long, red fingers to grip everything on the earth. Hyannis is pretty wet and mobody cares ex- cept Parson J. E. Aschbacker, who holds forth in the Congregational pulpit. He charges that town is wide open, and reveals that one of few stills ever seized by the sheriff ‘was out of the sheriff'¥ keeping. g