EARLY DAYS IN NEBRASKA
By J. A. Carpenter
I came to Gage county, Nebraska, in the fall of 1865, and homesteaded 160 acres of land, four miles from the village of Beatrice, in the Blue River valley. I built a log house 12x14 feet with one door and two windows. The floor was made of native lumber in the rough, that we had sawed at a mill operated by water power.
With my little family I settled down to make my fortune. Though drouth and grasshoppers made it discouraging at times, we managed to live on what little we raised, supplemented by wild game—that was plentiful. Wild turkeys and prairie chickens could be had by going a short distance and further west there were plenty of buffalo and antelope.
Our first mail was carried from Nebraska City on horseback. The first paper published in Gage county was in 1867 and was called the Blue Valley Record. In 1872 a postoffice was established in the settlement where we lived, which was an improvement over going four miles for mail. For the first schoolhouse built in the district where I lived I helped haul the lumber from Brownville, Nebraska, on the Missouri river, sixty-five miles from the village of Beatrice. The first few crops of wheat we raised were hauled to Nebraska City, as there was no market at home for it. On the return trip we hauled merchandise for the settlement. Every fall as long as wild game was near us we would spend a week or two hunting; to lay in our winter supply of meat. I remember when I came through where the city of Superior now is, first in 1866 and again in 1867, nothing was to be seen but buffalo grass and a few large cottonwood trees. I killed a buffalo near the present town of Hardy.
We have lived in Nebraska continuously since 1865 and it is hard to believe the progress that it has made in these few years.