A dam was built across the creek and the waters thus impounded were used to irrigate the tracts of land alloted to the companies. Rivalry existed between the companies is growing the best gardens. Let it be known to the credit of this early tillage that the soldiers raised nice gardens, but the grasshoppers discouraged their efforts. The first produce was intended to supply two hundred and fifty enlisted men and their officers and finally ended in the addition of several hundred dollars worth of produce being sold in town.

When the fort was abandoned in 1894, trees two or three feet in diameter were flourishing. After the valley was settled more densely, ditches were constructed until irrigation was practiced extensively along the borders of the entire creek. The dams averaged from three to ten feet in height and seventy-five to one hundred feet in length, and were located from a half to three-quarters of a mile apart along the course of the stream. The discharge of Lodgepole Creek is small in comparison with many other streams thus utilized in Nebraska. This is explained by the fact that the stream is fed from numerous springs along its entire course and also by the fact of the valley being from one to three miles in width. The irrigation of such land thus being very close proximity to the stream that water reappears promptly, after being spread over the bordering land. It has been observed frequently that when all the flow was being diverted at one point the stream a half mile further down would flow again the same as if no water had been diverted above.