He had bought out Frank Harris, Will Benn, Iperhope and some others, and made quite a ranch. After Billy's death, Mrs. Haines sold the ranch to Wilson brothers. Doc. Wilson was quite active for a time, but the ranch finally went to Scotty Henderson. Scotty has been in the Snake creek for a third of a century, and is the present owner of the valuable ranch, the history of which runs back to almost the beginning of the cow business in this part of the west.

Jim McKinney was also upon this creek some distance below the Elmore ranch. Mc- Kinney sold out and went into the creamery business at Alliance.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

COLONEL CHARLES COFFEE OF CREIGHTON'S, BOX ELDER, ROCK RANCH,

HAT CREEK AND CHADRON -- EMMET & BREWSTER -- ARREST

OF FLY SPECK BILL -- FIRST GARDENS IN SIOUX COUNTY

The Texas trail has brought many a good man into the western range country, and it did not depart from the custom when Colonel Charles Coffee arrived in 1873, at the Creighton ranch on Horse creek. Charlie was quite a fellow to "play his own hand," so he soon went over on the Box Elder in the Goshen Holes and built his initial ranch on the northern range.

The following year he went to the river, for hay and grasses of the Goshen Holes then made rather short picking for the stock in winter. Around the Rock ranch location, then as now, there were some excellent meadows. The summer range around there was good, and the valley produced good hay for winter. This brought about the building of the ranch at that point about 1877.