There was once a small burg called DeSoto, about five miles south of the present Blair, which was located by the S.C. & P.R.R. company in 1869, and named for the veteran, John I. Blair, of Blairstown, New Jersey, who was one of the leading spirits in the building of the road. Blair being a railroad town soon wholly absorbed DeSoto. The land was worth $1.25 per acre. To-day Blair has at least 2,500 of a population; is the prosperous county seat of Washington county. Land in the vicinity is worth from $25.00 to $40.00 per acre. The soil has no superior; this year showed on an average of twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre, and ordinarily yields sixty to eighty bushels of corn. Land up the Elkhorn Valley five years ago was $2.50 to $8.00 per acre, now it is worth from $12.00 to $30.00.
The S.C. & P.R.R. proper was built from Sioux City, Iowa, and reached Fremont, Nebraska, in 1868. It had a small land grant of only about 100,000 acres. The Fremont, Elkhorn Valley and Missouri River Railroad was organized and subsequently built from Fremont to Valentine, the direct route that nature made from the Missouri river to the Black Hills.
As to the terminus of this road, no one yet knows. Whether, or when it will go to the Pacific coast is a question for the future. The Missouri river proper is about 2,000 feet wide. In preparing to bridge it the channel has been confined by a system of willow mattress work, until the bridge channel is covered by three spans 333 feet each or 1,000 feet. The bridge is 60 feet above water and rests on four abutments built on caissons sank to the rock fifty feet beneath the bed of the river. This bridge was completed in November, 1883, at a cost of over $1,000,000.
But good-bye, reader; the conductor says this is Fremont, and I must leave the S.C. for the U.P.R.R. and begin a new chapter.
CHAPTER III.
Over the U.P.R.R. from North Platte to Omaha and Lincoln. — A description of the great Platte Valley.
I felt rather lonely after I had bid good-bye to my friends, but a depot is no place to stop and think, so I straightway attended to putting some unnecessary baggage in the care of the baggage-master until I returned, who said: "Just passed a resolution to-day to charge storage on baggage that is left over, but if you will allow me to remove the check, I will care for it without charge." One little act of kindness shown me already.
At the U.P. depot I introduced myself to Mr. Jay Reynolds, ticket agent, who held letters for me, and my ticket over the U.P. road, which brother had secured and left in his care. He greeted me with: "Am glad to know you are safe, Miss Fulton, your brother was disappointed at not meeting you here, and telegraphed but could get no answer. Feared you had gone to Valentine and been shot."
"Am sorry to have caused him so much uneasiness," I replied, "but the telegram came to Stuart when I was out at the location, and so could not let him hear from me, which is one of the disadvantages of colonizing on the frontier."
"Your brother said he would direct your letters in my care, and I have been inquiring for you—but you must stop on your return and see the beauties of Fremont. Mrs. Reynolds will be glad to meet you."