The building and improving of the ranch involved Gordon in heavy obligations which he was unable to meet in the later money-pinch. He built an ideal, but was unable to retain it. like so many of the ideals which dreamers build. Someone else absorbed the benefits of his genius and industry, because he built on borrowed money.

I do not know the present ownership of the old Whitehead ranch, although, as I recall, it was quite a place then.

In 1881, P. T. Yoder and his son H. F.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBR \SK \

(Frank) came from Aft. Pleasant, Iowa, and located on Bear creek, about ten miles west of the present site of Meridian. This ranch started with thirty-seven heifers and a dozen horses. Mr. Goodman, a squawman, lived not far from where they settled.

Homer Z. Yoder, no relative of the original family, has a ranch at this time, three or four miles down the creek from the first Yoder ranch.

There was a school house on Bear creek at the time -- said to be the one in which Molly Woods, heroine of "The Virginian" once taught school.

Frank Yoder. attended school here in the winter of 1881 and 1882, being the only white pupil in attendance. Five daughters of Goodman attended this school, they being beadyeyed half-breeds of varying ages.

At the tap of the bell for intermission, noon or night, these girls would move silently to the door, but as soon as in the clear, they would scatter and run for the brush like scared rabbits. Then at the call bell they would silently re-emerge and file shyly into their seats.