The Lodgepole valley is the longest in the county ; it enters at about the center of the western boundary, flows southeast and a little west of the center of the southern boundary passes out into Colorado. The Platte valley crosses the southeastern corner of the county and while not so long as the Lodgepole, is wider. In addition to these major valleys there are smaller valleys. Lodgepole creek and the Platte river are the streams and it is from them that the water is secured for the irrigation carried on in Deuel countv.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

FIRST SETTLERS

Like a large section of the Panhandle, the earliest whites in Deuel county were the cattlemen, who came here with their great herds of cattle, a few of whom became permanent settlers, and after the building of the Union Pacific railroad, a little real settlement began. Before the railroad came the distances were so great that few people ventured so far from a source of supply. A few adventurous spirits ventured in and many went by over the famous Oregon, California, and Colorado trails. Settlers came in slowly at first and their coming was not encouraged by the cattlemen, who saw that the homesteader would sooner or later absorb their range and supplant stockraising and grazing with farming and stockraising on a farmer's scale. The bitter feeling existing between the early settlers and the cowmen was not much manifest in Deuel county but the cowmen were obliged to give way to the grangers. After the coming of the railroad, there were increasing numbers of homesteaders and in time they counted by the hundred to the cattlemen's one. The southeastern and southwestern parts of Deuel county settled first as the railroad crossed the southeastern corner of the county, ran to Julesburg, Colorado, then turned across the southern boundary of the county a little west of the center and ran northwest, leaving a little north of the center of the western boundary.