seventeen, north of Range forty-four west. He organized the Oshkosh Land & Cattle Company.

D. C. Hooper arrived and went into ranching about the same time. Previously, Knowles- Baldwin Company, the Ogallala Company,, Adams, Redington & Company, and the LJsco ranch were in practical control of the range, the Ogallala having taken over many of the _ other ranches. This company had a "camp" at the mouth of the Blue, when the latter day ranchmen began to arrive.

About 1878, on the north side of the Niobrara, west of Valentine, some English people financed and builded what became known as Poor's ranch. The place was about due north of Nenzel, although there were neither Nenzel or Valentine at that time, and it grew to the proportions, then necessary to be called a ranch, namely: the number of cattle ran upward of a thousand. The range extended westward twenty or more miles and north to the Dakota line.

Two cowboys were killed by Indians there in its early years.

This ranch was where Addison E. Sheldon, present secretary of the State Historical Society, stopped for a time on his first journey into northwest Nebraska. With the coming of the granger the ranch was abandoned.

Earnest Brothers, who located on the Niobrara in Sioux county, in 1882, held the ranch for twenty years or more. Wilse Earnest moved to Scottsblufr about 1900, but Jim was ranching some years later. Both are now dead.

Mr. Meeks, who located on the Niobrara, about 1878, fifteen miles up the river from Agate, was at the crossing of the old Ft. LaraT mie-Ft. Robinson Military road.