A. HALL AND ROBERT GRAHAM'S OLD TIME RANCH -- OGALLALA MEN AND EVENTS -- INDIANS GET SOUTHERS -- BARGAIN SALES OF RANCH LOCATIONS -- HARPER'S DEAL

Gene Hall, the foreman of the Blue River ranch, was but a kid of eighteen years, when he "drove drags," up the Texas trail in 1878. The older men of the outfit made him "eat dust," which consisted of picking up the stragglers in the rear of the herds.

Young as lie was, 'Gene saw the great grass ranges of western Nebraska, and mentally vowed to come back some day, and have a ranch of his own. How well he has succeeded, one can see by a visit to Camp Lake, where Hall and Graham have one of the finest ranches and range in the west. It is modelled after the old ranches ; foreman's or main ranch dwelling, mess house, bunk house, and stockade corral. A little of the "modern" has crept in, birds have come with the groves, blue grass and clover have come with the birds, and in this age of concrete, no one could escape a little cement. But it has kept "the identity" of the ranches of forty years ago.

In the spring of seventy-nine, Hall returned and arrived in Sidney "broke flat." He stopped at the "Miner's Hotel," which was in the southwest corner of the block in which you will now find Hon. W. P. Miles, and the Hons. Joseph and Robert Oberfelder. three of the old timers of Sidney. In the days of the middle eighties this block contained the emporium of Mike Tobin and Harry Winters, and the Metropolitan held the position on Front Street. Nearly all the old timers stopped at the Miner's hotel in 1879, and the landlord took 'Gene in and let him stay without pay, until he secured work.