The lean years of the early nineties, broke many cattlemen, and the grangers were "not yet upon their feet." Intense privation and heart-aches covered the broad acres of Cheyenne county. The prices of merchandise dropped very low in Sidney and elsewhere. Brilliant financiers and politicians call it back to normal, and helpless mortals echo the apology

for the crime of financial depression, from time to time.

The New Order

Raising of wheat has changed the business of the county which has been settled by farmers and small ranchers and Cheyenne county is today one of the productive areas of the state.

Sidney now has twenty-eight wholesale distribution branches of farm machinery and the like. The city also contains some hundred and twenty-five business houses which handle all kinds of merchandise, including the stocks of autos, trucks, tractors, and all sorts of implements required by the farmer. Her stone quarries and gravel pits have been used extensively in local building and these products are shipped into other parts of the state. While wheat and cattle stand out as the great resources of Cheyenne county, her other agricultural products are many and valuable.

At the present time interest is taken in the Lodgepole valley in oil and natural gas. A deformation, or structure points to oil land, and an old surveyor's report shows oil seeps east of Sidney but up to the present no well has been brought in.

United States Land Office

The United States Land Office was established in Sidney in July, 1887, with the first officers as follows: John M. Adams, register and G. B. Blakely, receiver ; G. B. Blanchard, register and L. M. Neeves, receiver, succeeded them. They in turn were succeeded by John M. Adams, register and P. G. Griffith, receiver ; George W. Heist, register and R.