HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

OLD TRAILS

There is a woof and warp to every garment. And the garment of frontier history is made over and upon old trails that twist and wind through canyons and woods, over mountains, and in the valley. These trails were old when the trapper came, when the first Latin adventurers penetrated the wilderness, which is now so alive and teeming with inspiration, with human action, and human thrills of ecstacy and tragedy. They wound along the banks of the rivers and their tributaries, finding the most passable fords and accessible passes, the drinking places and the meadows.

From the Bluewater (Snake creek), and L'eau qui court (pronounced lo-ke-cort and now called the Running water or Niobrara), from the Lodgepole, Gonneville (or Pumpkin) creek, Lorrens' (Lawrence) fork, and from White river; and to and from the springs in the hills, criss-crossing the valleys, in the sand hills, or on the high divides, they made a veritable net work of trails -- -trails which were made long before the time of the Indian.

Before the periods of those industrious peoples -- the mound-builders of the Mississippi valley, and the cliff-dwellers of the sad southwest, and the earth-dwellers of Nebraska -- this land about us, newly risen from primeval sea, this mystical sunland of the younger world, became a land of trails. At the foot of Scotts Bluff mountain, in the bad lands north of Harrison, in the bluffs of the Running water, are found fossils, telling an unrecorded story. Pterodactylus, the flying lizard of long ago, turtles, and the bones of the Mastodon are here. We may yet find trails of Irish Elk and Cave Bear, which the first men slew for food and for adventure.