But the first domestic cow in western Nebraska, was that which William Sublette trailed after his wagon in the trapper days, when he drove the first wagons into the mountains. When he met Fitzpatrick, and necessity required more speed than they were regularly making, they turned the cow loose, near the present site of Morrill, and she became the first range cow in the Panhandle of the state. That was before Fort William, the antecedent of Fort Laramie, was built.

The next cows were ten years later, being taken through to Oregon. Then for about a quarter of a century, plodding oxen were the cattle that trailed across the land. During that period the buffalo w^ere nearly exterminated, and the prairies grew luxuriant grasses, only to be burned, or to feed mustangs and wild horses, and work oxen. After that the real run of cattle affairs for a score of years, before the granger came.

Permanent settlement began in the vicinity of Scottsbluff in 1884. Before that date, for a number of years, there were cowpunchers working up and down the North river country, who later became permanent fixtures. Charlie Foster and L. J. Wyman were the

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

earliest in point of time. They were in a measure fixed here several years before any of the others, but it was in the capacity of rangers looking after cattle. They settled down and took land in the early eighties. ■ Runey C. Campbell, who still resides upon his homestead (1919), George Marsh, lately removed to the newer land of Montana, and W. E. Ingraham, who was killed by a colt on his farm in Mitchell valley, were the next to build permanent domiciles in the vicinity. They located about ten miles apart, that being in their judgment a good neighborly distance.