The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad first began work at Plattsmouth, on the Missouri river, in 1869, and reached Lincoln July 20, 1870. From Lincoln it reaches out in six different lines. But this table will give a better idea of the great network of railroads under the B. & M. Co.'s control. The several divisions and their mileage are as follows:
| Pacific Junction to Kearney | 196 |
| Omaha line | 17 |
| Nebraska City to Central City | 150 |
| Nebraska City to Beatrice | 92 |
| Atchison to Columbus | 221 |
| Crete to Red Cloud | 150 |
| Table Rock to Wymore | 38 |
| Hastings to Culbertson | 171 |
| Denver Extension | 244 |
| Kenesaw cut-off to Oxford | 77 |
| Chester to Hebron | 12 |
| DeWitt to West Line | 25 |
| Odell to Washington, Kan. | 26 |
| Nemaha to Salem | 18 |
The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, being a part of the C.B. & Q. system, forms in connection with the latter road the famous "Burlington Route," known as the shortest and quickest line between Chicago and Denver, and being the only line under one management, tedious and unnecessary delays and transfers at the Missouri river are entirely avoided.
P. S. Eustis of Omaha, Neb., who is very highly spoken of, stands at the head of the B. & M.R.R. as its worthy General Passenger Agent, while R. R. Randall of Lincoln, Neb., Immigration Agent B. & M.R.R. Co., of whom I have before spoken, will kindly and most honestly direct all who come to him seeking homes in the South Platte country. His thorough knowledge of the western country and western life, having spent most of his years on the frontier, particularly qualifies him for this office.
MILFORD.
"The Saratoga of Nebraska." So termed for its beautiful "Big Blue" river, which affords good boating and bathing facilities, its wealth of thick groves of large trees, and the "dripping spring," that drips and sparkles as it falls over a rock at the river bank. As before, Mr. Randall had prepared my way, and a carriage awaited me at the depot. I was conveyed to the home of Mr. J. H. Culver, where I took tea. Mrs. Culver is a daughter of Milford's pioneer, Mr. J. L. Davison, who located at M. in 1864, and built the first house. He built a mill in '66, and from the mill, and the fording of the river at this point by the Mormons, Indians, and emigrants, was derived the name for the town that afterward grew up about him.
Through the kindness of the Davison family our stay at Milford was made very pleasant. Riding out in the evening to see the rich farming land of the valley, and in the morning a row on the river and ramble through the groves that have been a resting-place to so many weary travelers and a pleasure ground for many a picnic party. Indeed, Milford is the common resort for the Lincoln pleasure parties. It is twenty miles due west of the capital, on the B. & M.R.R., which was built in 1880. Mr. Davison told of how they had first located on Salt Creek, near where is now the city of Lincoln, but was then only wild, unbroken prairies. Finding the "Big Blue" was a better mill stream, he moved his stakes and drove them deep for a permanent home on its banks. He first built a log house, and soon a frame, hauling his lumber from Plattsmouth. A saw-mill was soon built on the "Blue," and lumber was plenty right at hand. The ford was abandoned for a bridge he built in '66, and to his flouring-mill came grain for a hundred miles away, as there was none other nearer than Ashland. This being the principal crossing-place of the Blue, all the vegetables they could raise were readily sold. Mrs. Culver told of selling thirty-five dollars' worth of vegetables from her little garden patch in one week, adding: "We children were competing to see who could make the most from our garden that week, and I came out only a few dollars ahead of the rest."
Mrs. D. told of how with the aid of a large dog, and armed with a broom, she had defended a neighbor's daughter from being carried away captive by a band of Indians. The story of their pioneering days was very interesting, but space will not allow me to repeat it.
In the morning I was taken through three very pretty groves. One lies high on a bluff, and is indeed a pretty spot, named "Shady Cliff." Then winding down canyon Seata, little canyon, we crossed the River to the Harbor, an island which is covered with large cottonwood, elm, hickory, and ash, and woven among the branches are many grapevines—one we measured being sixteen inches in circumference—while a cottonwood measured eighteen feet in circumference. Surely it has been a harbor where many weary ones have cast anchor for a rest. Another grove, the Retreat, is even more thickly wooded and vined over, and we found its shade a very pleasant retreat on that bright sunny morning. But pleasanter still was the row of a mile down the river to the "Sparkling Springs."
Reader, go ask Professor Aughey about the rocks over which this spring flows. All I can tell you is, it looks like a great mass of dark clay into which had been stirred an equal quantity of shells of all sizes, but which had decayed and left only their impression on the hardened rock.