What the Bay State accomplished at Kimball and north, and Tom Swan in Wyoming, the Ogallala company did at Alkali, now Paxton, Nebraska, and north and west.

This company put ten or twelve thousand cattle into the business at the home ranch, and then bought the Shiedley outfit with its many thousands, Sheedy's Seven U, Boyd Brothers' herd. Sharp's ranch, the Tusler cattle, and several of the other herds of five hundred to two thousand.

The Shiedley ranch was the location of the first dry farming in that part of Nebraska. In 1881, Otto Baumgarten went out on an island in the South Platte, and plowed some ground, and planted a diversity of crops, mostly garden stuff. His success was a surprise and revelation to the cowmen, who had no idea that anything would grow without irrigation in this semi-arid, or as then called "arid" west. Even after this demonstration, the ranchmen did not take to farming, but left that achievement for other times and other people. Nor was gardening undertaken. Everything was purchased, even to butter, although the ranch might have ten thousand cows.

West of Sidney on the Lodgepole were several ranches as early as 1874. John M. Adams and H. V. Redington were among the first. Adams and Redington had organized a company to take over the ranch at the mouth of "Lorren's" fork. Sidney was the accessible trading point, and there was more or less social life there on account of the fort. It was determined that a ranch nearer Sidney would also have its advantages, especially at shipping time. Cattle could be moved to the railroad and allowed to rest on the fine pasturage and hay meadows, then shipped with little or no shrinkage. The best available spot for the use of Adams & Redington was found near the presert site of Potter.