Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, May 2, 1909, Page 21

o S —— ! A fRoge, and in D THE OMAHA HB first séttlement in Box Butte county -was made by John 8 Hughes fn 1879, on the Niobrara river, in section 6, township 25, range 5i. Prior to that time there had been a number of cattle ranches located along Snake creek, the first belng establ Cattle comp and by Paxton & Bosler. None of the land embraced in these ranches was ever patented to any one con- riected with elther of the ranches, and upon the advent of the settlers into what Is now Box Butte counfy, the herds and the movable personal property belonging to the cattle companles transterred farther west. Between the 187 and 1884 this county was just one large cattle 188 and 188 settlers poured i, and nearly every quarter section of avatlable land was taken. The first meeting of the county commis- sioniers was held March 23, 1887. At the date of the organization of the county the ulation of the county was approxi- éftel\' 5000, The boundaries of the county Make never been changed since the date ofits organization. The county derives its name from a ldrge grass-covered butte located in the northeast part of the county, and which towers about 150 feet above the surround- ing territory, and which, on account of its péoullar shape, has always been called “Box butte.” Who first gave it this name is hot known, as it has been called that ever since Buffalo Bill hunted the buffalo ofi the plains surrounding the butte. The buttes of the northwest are as mile posts, marking periods and events in the history of the county. Among the numerous buttes of this section of the country none has a more interesting history than the “Crow butte.” Located five miles east of Craw- 14rd, it can be seen for miles in every di- réction, standing like a sentinel guarding the pine-clad hills on the south and the beautiful White river valley, which winds across the country at its feet on the north Its battle-scarred sides are eviderces of the hard-fought battles which occurred be- tween the tribes of hostile Indlans that onge inhabited this section of the great t. The sofl of Box Butte county Is princi- PAlly a black, sandyloam, rich in phos phates, and, where Irrigation is possible, imniense crops of cereals and roots can be rafsed. The' ramnfall fs very unlcertain. The average altitude belng over 4,000 feet, thé nights are always cool. Taking of yéar Wwith ‘another, there are at least %0 days of sunshine in each year. In no county_in the state is there a greater per cent of its total area adapted to agric ture than in this county, and when there 18 sufficient rainfall most abundant crops of graln and vegetables are raised. There has never been a year since the arrival of the first settlers In which the farmers have hed by the Ogalalla were years falled to ralse 1 fair crop of potatoes with- olt Irrigation,. and in favorable years the yl6ld has been .enormous. Box Butte county potatoes have established a reputa- tion for excellence that extends over sev- eral states. Dhe feature of this county is sure to at- tract the attention of the stranger. It is e opportunities here for engaging in the dliry business. Already the farmers of tiils county have 2,200 cows on their farms and they are now. using 1% hand separa- ALLIANCE JUN NIOR NORMAL, WOMAN'S CLUB OF ALLIANCE. ance and for Box Butte county. A& the steel tracks blaze the way, towns have sprung and homes tiing the prairie. The plow and hoe are converting the raw prairies into productive farms and ranches, where the sofl and the climate need only a little of man's ingenuity and labor to make productive fields. This county will aiways be a great stock-rafsing country, owing to the mild climate, the nutritious native grass, the abundance of hay and feed raised and the suitability of certain sections for grazing purposes. The tendency now Is toward the raising of small bunches of finely bred stock instead of the immense herds that once cevered the plains. Unimproved land can new be bought at from 3 to $20 an acre and is rapidly advancing In value The ranehes are becoming the homes of the owne: Men improving and beautifying their places with the expectation of remalning on them permanently. While the county is first, are last and all the tors. 60 acres seeded down with has made it possible for these farmers to ship last year 13,000 poufifs of butter and 17,000 gallons of cream. Go into any sec- tion of this county where dairying Is car- rled on, and yeu will usually find geod comfortable houses and barns and the peo- ple prosperous and intelligent. Dairying turnishes employment on the farm for boys and girls, and this means better men and better women. The value of the dairy products of the United States s §700,000,000 annually, or, in other words, one and a half times greater than all the geld and silver produced in the world, and a greater portion of this is produced in seven states Therefore the state that is well adapted for dalrying is fertunate. What Box Butte county needs at the present time is an influx of industrious, in- telligent farmers, with a little capital, as the opportunities are as good here as can be found in any part of western Nebraska, where the farms must be tilled without irrigation. What is it that makes a town worth liv- ing in? What excuse bas Alliance for the claim that it 18 & good residence or a good business town? True, it is the center of a large circle of good farming land, still there are lots-of other sections with just as gaod farming land. We will assume that the native resources around Alllance are ample. The soll is fertile, the methods of farming and stock raising good, the crops are uniformly fair, and the cattle on the range is in good condition. Under normal conditions, the town of such a rural dis- trict should share its prosperity. Hers we find o county seat that partakes of this condition. The visitor observes that the houses are well bullt, the grounds well kept, and the homes attractive and artis- tic. He is impressed at once with the fact that the value of the beautiful is ap- preciated by the citizens and that the spirit of co-operatioh is abroad. And he is liable to have a faint suspicion that a woman's club is exercising an influence here. It will be found that In every progres- sive community a substantial number of energetic, public spirited men and wemen have systematically gone about the im- provement of their homos; they have set examples, they have devoted themselves to The county at the present time has alfalfa. This BOX BUTTE COUNTY OFFICIALS fostering the spirit of local pride of home town work. They have determined to make their town most satisfactory to live in; a place of beauty, convenlence and health. They have directed their energles toward making thelr town the real heart of the surrounding community. Every towny every city the siwe of Alllance, is the cens ter, the heart of its surrounding country. It may be a weak, inactive heart, or It may be a strong, enthusiastic, pulsating heart, carrying the current of its influence vigorously into the remotest corner of the territery it dominates. A goed farming community buys much. The people live well and raise a wholesome variety of products, but they buy through the year many things. The average farmer spends $27 & year for supplies. Some buy more, seme buy less. Now, this means a large circulation of money, perhaps $300,- 000 Or 3400,000 are expended annually. How and where do they spend it? Is the town itself such as to Impress them with a feel- ing that it is the real heart of the com- munity; is it a pretty town in which they cannot but feel a just pride? Has it well kept streets and good roads leading into it over which it s & delight to driv either with a light bugsy or a heavy loaded wagon carrying a load of preduce to market? Has it shade trees and an at- tempt at least at & public park to make it attractive? In short, is it such a place as a man may be glad to visit, to patronize and to call it his town, and where as he Tetires in his latter years frem the active work of farm life he may meve or look forward to meving into and becoming him- self a resident Box Butte county sent to market last year over 11,000 head of cattle, 1,00 fat hogs, 2,000 horses and 3,800 fat sheep. This vast amount of stock was nearly all shipped from Alllance. Can anyone doubt that with this sum flowing through the heart of the community year after year the heart will not strengthen and grow and be able to send back through its channels a stream of prosperity and increased value to the farms out of which it is the growth, that the entire community wil not be stronger? The community will become a better place to live in, in both town and country sectlen. The raiiroads are doing much for Alli- 1908—TEACHERS AND STUDENTS FROM ALL OVER NORTHWESTERN NEBRASKA time a stock country, the reader must not infer that this is the only resource. No other county in the state.compares with it in the number of acres of potatoes grown each year, and in the price they bring on the market. This county raised last year and shipped out 6,511 bushels of pota- toes. This forms one of the county's principal industries and one that is safely counted on by the farmers as an unfalling industry. The productiveness of Box Butte county and the velume of business done by Al- liance can be appreciated when we state that last year there were shipped out from the county seat seven cars of grain, twenty ars of horses, 212 cars of cattle, six cars of sheep, 101 cars of potatoes and 162 cars miscellaneous. Buring the same year there was shipped into Alllance 210 cars of lumber, 349 cars of coal, twenty-three thirty-five cars has a valua- 7,500 cars of farm implements miscellaneous. This county tion of about 36,000,000 and about people. The county has fifty miles of rallroad, and but few railroad stations. The schools of the county are in a mest excellent con- dition when one stops to consider the new- ness of this western frontier. There are about sixty school districts In the county and ninety teache A great improvement as been made in_the country schools dur- ing the administration of County Super- intendent Phillips, who s a man well adapted for this position. The average salary pald teachers is $47.50 Alliance is the county seat of Box Butte county and i is decidedly in advance of the rest of the county. It Is not only one of the largest, but it is one of the most thrifty citles in western Nebraska. It has two public schools, a $(0,00 high school, $40,0 Catholic academy, $40,000 hotel, state normal and many educational advantages. The gevernmeht land office is located here. There is a $10,000 city hall, two national banks with deposits of $1,000,000, two news- papers, pressed brick plant, water and one of the finest state. The creamery prices for products, its goods being shipped all over the west. Alllance has feur lum- ber yards and large retall stores. Its popu- lation is increasing at a swift rate. Its growth is not a boom, but a steady growth, as the surrounding country settles up, The first intimation that a town was to be bullt on the present site of Alllance was in June, 1887, when the Lincoln Land company, then closely associated with the Burlington & Missouri River Rallroad com- pany, purchased all of section 36 and platted a townsite. The reason for the selection of this particular 'ocality was because of the proximity of the large ranching and farm- works creamerfes In the pays the highest ing industries and also to establish a division point for the Burlington road, where a reundhouse, machine and repair shops could be located. The future metrop- olis of northwestern Nebraska was then launched, buildings sprang up in rapld succession, settlers swarmed in, and in elght weeks Alllance was a flourlshing village of over 700 inhabitants. 28, 1888, the board of county met anc On March commissioners and incorporated the village of Allj- In 188 the population of Alliance had reached a point when it could be ad- vanced to a city of the second class, and this was consummated April 8 of that year. The Alliance land district, which coms SOME LEADING Moving in the Front Rank || SOD SCHOOL. HOUSE IN BOX BUTTE prises the Sioux, Box Scott's Buff, counties of Sheridan, Dawes, Butte, Deuel, Cheyenne and had its seat or United States land office, in Alliance, and is still. tran- sacting a large amount of business. In the early settlement of this part of the state, and in the organization of most of the counties, it was thought best to at once fssue the bonds of the county and erect expensive public buildings. This county has never assumed a bounded in- debtedness for such purpose. The rate of taxation for county and state purposes is only 21 mills on each dollar of assessed valuation. The location of Alliance as a distrib- uting point for the great northwest is not surpassed by any other city in western Nebraska. Thie fact was recognized by the International Harvester company, MEMBERS OF ALLIANCE which has established headquarters here for western Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyo- ming and a part of Colorado, and at this time there are wholesale grocery firms BOX BUTTE COUNTY COUNTY, WITH TBA COMMERCIAL CLUB. CHER AND PUPILS looking over the flell with a view of estabe lighing branch raliroad facilitles give quick service to the western portion of South Dakota and' Montana, Wyoming and - the - whole northwestern country. It fs a division point on the Bur- lington, which maintains a large round house and machine shops, and which gives houses here. Its employment to a great number of work- men, The payroll for these shops and trainmen and office forces exceods $6,000 a month. The total valuation of the raile road property in Alllance is sald' to be about $400,000. But the greatest glory of Alliance is its public schoels. Every citizen of Alllance feels a just pride in the excellence and the schools. The en- s 931, with twenty= progressivencss of rollment for last year w four teachers employed; with salaries ranging from $1,690 per year to $10 .per month. For seven years these schools have been under the able management of D, W. Hayes. The Junior Normal at Alliance had the largest enrollment last year of any junior normal in the state. D. W. Hayes, the city superintendent, is principal of the Junior Normal schook At present tyo clvic organizations are doing much for the good of the city. The Woman's club was organized three years ago and has a membership of twenty-five representative women of the city. This year they have taken up the work of es- tablishing a public library, putting up a substantial Carnegie building and improve ing the city park The Commercial club has a membership of 150 and Is’very active. It is of recent organization, but not only laid plans fo several desirable improvements in the cit but has brought about some of theso fms provements. It is working not only for the city of Alliance, but for the develop- ment of the entire county. At present it is sending out 500 letters to 600 potato grow- ers, giving them the best information ob- tainable in regard to the best varleties of seed and the growing and marketing of their potatoes. COMMISSIONERS. — Roosevelt's Lite-long Regret. IVE or six Years ago, relates Outing Magazine, President Roosevelt visited the Gettys- burg battlefield % made a Degoration day speech, and I was one of three Press associa- tlon men to go along on his special train. Coming back to Washington, the president jolned General O. O. Howard, General Danlel Sickles, the then commissioner of pensions, Ware, and the newspaper men, in the smoking compartment, and naturally enough the talk turned to war and carnage, battle, murder and sudden death. Mr Roosevelt did. most of the talking, it is true, but the others got & chance to say something every now and then. Finally it came to Commissioner Ware's turn. + Mr. Roosevelt,” said he, “I Bad a most interesting visitor the other day, and never have 1 regretted so much the inelasticity of the pension lawes. “This visitor was the most distigured human being I have even seen. He had mo nose at all, one ear had been shot or cut away, a musket ball had gone through both his cheeks, and he had other marks and scars t00 numerous to mention. He had been a union cavalryman, and his record was of the best. But he was strong and bealthy and the examiners had reported that he was rot entitied to a pension. I thought it pretty rough.” The president leaned forward until his face was about three inches from the com- missioner’s. He lifted his arm and brought his closed fist down on Mr. Ware's knee with a good sound thump. “Mr. Commissioner,” he cried, “you take a wrong view of this matter. That man should have been proud of those wounds, those honorable disfigurements; positively happy over them. He should have been willing, if able, to pay the government a bounty for them instead of begging a pen- sion from the government “Let me tell you something, Mr. Ware. I have always been unhappy, mest unhappy, that 1 was not severely wounded in Cuba; that 1 did not lose & leg or an arm or both; or that 1 was not wounded in some other striking and disfiguring way. The nearest I came to It was when a spent ball struck the back of my hand. It merely raised & lump, and even that disappeared In & day of two. Oh, how I wish, how I have never ce to wish, that it had gone clear th Thet would have left some kind of a scar at least We all sat there In silence; In wonder too deep for words. If anyone else in the world except the president of the United States, or the occupant of some other office on equal dignity, had tried to get away with any similar statement, he would have been told to run along and sell his papers and not bother grown folks with such non- sense. As it was, General Howard looked dazed, General Sickles gave somethin ap- proximating & grunt—both being ‘‘honor- ably disfigured” civil war veterans—and the rest of us smoked away and said noth ing et Justices White and Holmes. Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justic White of the supreme court personally are more ‘ntimate than any of the other mem- bers, relates the New York American. So soon as court adjourns these two venerable men emerge from the capitol together and swing down Pennsylvania avenus at al- most a Weston gait. The former s a re- publican of abolitionary antecedents and environment; the latter a stickler for the sovereignity of states, and when a young man believed in slavery. They were talking tariff the other day during ono of their strides, and Mr. Justice White agreed that gaudy and expensive articles of apparel should be taxed. “I believe in the proposed tariff on glov he said. Mr. Justice Holmes gazed at him in ap- parent astonishment. “Don't you ever tell me again that you are not on terms of triendship with Standard OIl," he said. “What do you mean?’ asked the Louisi- anian, in rather an abrupt tone, Simply this,” the Boston jurist an- swered: “If gloves—they being one of the expensive articles women must have—are to go higher, it means that fewer pairs will be purchased. So, if the demand is less, the gloves at home must last longer And how can this be done? By cleaning and preserving them. And how are they preserved? By using benzine, gasoline and the like, products of the Standard OIL ‘The next time a Standard Ofl case ap- pears before us I am golug to keep a mighty close watch on your vote, Ed, & mighty close eye.” General Grant’s Early Days. Mrs. Emma Dent Casey, Writing in the Circle magazine of her memories of Gen- eral Grant, refutes some popular legends which have been current. There is the famous story of Captain Grant living in such poverty that he had to haul his poor little fagots of wood through the ecity with an ox team and blow on his ungloved fingers to keep them from treexing. The truth 15 that he and his negrees cut the wood and he often sent one of them to the city with & load to sell to the families of a Mr. Blow and Mr. Bernard. Mr. Ber- nard was the brother of my brother John's wite. During the Christmas holidays one wintar the negro who generally drove the team for Captain Grant was ill and there was no one to send in his place. The captain’s Bt. Louls friends sent him word that they were out of woed, and, accordingly, he hitched up his team of white horses to his blg wagon, loaded on the wood and hauled it to the city him- self. He probably hauled séveral loads in thie way. I do not know how many. Any other man with the saune temper of spirit and the same lack of false pride would have done the same. On ene of these trips, as the captain was driving along seated on his load of wood, he suddenly came face to face with Gen- eral Harney and his staff. The general, resplendent in a new uniform and gold trimmings, eyed the figure of the farmer on the wagon with astonishment. Then he drew in his horse, Grant stopped his team, and the pair smiled into each other's eyes “Why, Grant, what In blazes are you doing?"’ exclaimed Harney. ‘The captalin, sitting comfortably atop his lead of wood with his axe and whipstock at his side, shifted one muddy foot across the other and drawled W I, general, I'm hauling wood." The thing was so obvious and Grant so naive that General Harney and his staff roared with laughter. They shook his hand and jeked with him and finally carried him off te dine with hetel. them at the Planters' That is the true story of Captain t-the-heels Grant peddling wood for a pittance in the streets. A Perllous Predicament. Robert Herriok, the brilllant realistic novelist, said at a recent luncheon at Chi- cago: “There Is a type of American wife who, 1l her greed for wealth and display, brings unhappiness on herself. She rather re- minds me of the fat man and the table d'hote dinner. This man entered a restaurant that served a dinner at the fixed price of cents. He knotted a napkin about his neck and fell to heavily. 8o heavily, In fact, that the walter, after a whigpered conyer- sation with the proprietor, approached him and sald: ‘Beg pardon, sir, you a quarter extra; “The fat but I'll have to charge you eat so much.’ breath man, rgl and short of from his excessive gorging, said earnestly For goodness sake, don't do that! I'm nearly dead now from eating 75 cents worth. If you make me eat another quar- ter I'll bust.—New York Times AP John Drew and His Nephew. Repeated efforts made by & s look ing Individual a short time ago to “touch a well known actor, playing at one of the Broad street houses, recalled a lot of stories of how varlous actors have come to grief and how they appealed for assist- nce. cedy Some storles were serious says the Philadeiphia Ledger, the latter was a yarn concerning Jack Barrymore and his uncle, John Drew. It was & good deal like adding insult to in jury, but Jack got the money, anyway. He was returning from a tour of Aus- tralla and stopped in Ban Francisco just some funny, and among in time to meet the earthquake. Jack lost everything but his clothes, and just as soon as he could get a place where he could write a letter he directed one to John Drew, making it rather strong. “Dear uncle,” he wrote, “I am up against it in this fair city, and anything you can send me will be greatly appreciated. I was asleep when the earthquake arrived, and was thrown clear across the room into a bathtub filled with water. The shock aroused me, and, after dodging a few fall- ing walls, I managed to reach the street, stll clad in my pyjamas. When I reached the street I was met by two soldlers, who immediately put me to work cleafing the debris. You can see that I am up agalnst it, and I shall await an early reply."” When Barrymore received his uncle's re- ply he found it to be both short and sweet, It ran as follows: “Dear Jack: I always knew it would take an unnatural convul- sion of the earth to make you take a bath, and 1 was also sure that it would take ie United States ‘army to put you to work.” But the letter contained a money order, Rather » Fan, Dr. Madison C. Peters was discussing the question, “Will Coming Man Marry?* He instanced a certain type of bachelor “This man,” he sald, “is a hypocrite, He uses’ his religion as a cloak “And what will he do in the next world, eh?" said the reporter. “Oh,” said Dr. Peters, “he won't need any cloak there."—New York Tribune, |