They had about two hundred and fifty head of cattle, and forty or fifty horses. They put up several hundred tons of hay along the river bottoms, and they milked from thirty to fifty cows.
Mr. Evans was in the County Clerk's office at North Platte, and Mr. and Mrs. Hall, whose only daughter was Mrs. Evans, lived upon the ranch. They made butter, and kept several hundred hens, and had private customers for the product.
Prior to their settlement upon this acreage, which was about 1867, Major L. Walker owned the place and the LW brand. His one
HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA
thousand to two thousand cattle ranged the sand hills northward, and along White Horse Creek and the North Platte river. Settlement had begun to make a change at the time I was there. In fact, the spring following there was almost a ceaseless caravan of covered wagons moving on into the west. I wondered that it could hold so many, and yet leave any land unoccupied.
"Grandpa" and "Grandma" Hall are gone to their rewards, both being devout Methodists. John E. Evans, his wife, and son Everett, are still at North Platte, and John E., as usual, is doing official duty.
He served in the legislature at the time Millard and Diederick were elected United States senators, after the all winter deadlock. It will be remembered that D. E. Thompson of Lincoln desired one of the places, and his railroad influences were hard at work. Tohn £.