The law was then confined to Nebraska, but now includes all the western states.

Cheyenne; County Schools

District No. 1, was organized in 1871, with C. E. Borgquist, moderator; D. Carrigan, director, and Joseph Cleburne, treasurer. It included Cheyenne county as it then existed, and unorganized Sioux county which then extended eastward to the present line of Holt county. In a period of less than fifty years twenty-three counties have been formed in this first school district, which originally included all northwestern Nebraska.

The first teacher in this district was Irene Sherwood, who taught the school of twelve pupils at her home in Sidney, during the winter of 1871-1872. Ten years later there were four school districts in all this territory, located at Sidney, Big Springs, Antelopeville (now Kimball) and Lodgepole. Sidney reported one hundred and fifty pupils with a two room school. J. M. Brenton was principal and Mrs. N. L. Shelton, assistant.

By 1884, nine districts lined the Union Pacific Railroad from Big Springs to Cheyenne and one district had been created in the still unorganized territory of Sioux county, near Fort Robinson on White river. Miss Mary Delahunty was the teacher, and Daniel Klein, director. The next year two more districts were organized in Cheyenne county ; one on Pumpkin creek and the other on the North Platte river. Districts Nos. 2 and 3 were organized in Sioux county with John Tucker and W. V. Pennington directors of the two districts, in the order named.

There seems to have been no county superintendent in Cheyenne county until January, 1871, when George Ballou assumed the duties of that office. He was the first county superintendent of a territory covering nearly a third of the state. On the first Saturday in February, 1873, he held the first teacher's examination at which Rose C.