Sturgis & Lane organized the Union Cattle Company, and Mr. Goodell was one of the big stockholders. The Bridle-Bit brand was theirs, and it was one familiar to the early grangers. This company is credited with hiring men from the Union Pacific shops at Cheyenne, and the women of the wild district, as well as cowboys, to file upon lands. Be that as it may, it secured a vast acreage, much of which will come under the Fort Laramie government canal for irrigation.

About five thousand acres of this land was on lower Horse Creek in Nebraska, and a "Lincoln Land Company," of Minnesota was negotiating for its purchase in 1907, when the news came that the "Lincoln Land Company" of Nebraska, had purchased the stock of the corporation, thereby acquiring the enormous acreage in this state, as well as in Wyoming.

Nearly opposite this ranch, on the other side of the North Platte river, was Oelrich's ranch. When the Scotchmen were becoming excited over the bonanza ranching in the high plains region, the Oelrich brothers, Harry and Charlie, came out from Cheyenne, and acquired a small holding of hay meadows, on the north side of the river in the vicinity of the present site of Morrill. This they fenced like the Sturgis & Lane hay meadows were fenced, with native cedar and pitch pine posts, and barbed wire.

There was no bridge at this point, but the river was generally in good condition to ford,

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA