abundance in the canyons and among the rocks, while in the sandhills are found the sand cherries.

There were very few settlers in the sandhills then, few and far between. In the early days', a family wished to get up to a northern settlement so struck out across the county through the sandhills. They got lost and wandered around for some days. They ate up all the provisions they had and fed the straw out of the bed-ticks to the horses before they finally came to the head of Blue Creek. They knew they would find somebody by following that down. They reached the Davis ranch tired and hungry. After resting and getting a fresh supply of provisions they secured a cowboy guide to take them through the hills. It is easy, even now, to get lost in them and there are many more settlers.

The usual and popular residence of the early settlers was of course the "Soddy." Even the Kinkaid homesteaders of 1905 to 1910 most all built sod houses. Among the older settlers however, there arose a great craze of building residences of stone laid up in Alkali mud. These materials could usually be found handy and in abundance, and when properly constructed such a house is nearly as good as a brick house.

About 1906, the fashion changed and the frame house or concrete house became popular. It was about that time that Archie Wynes and Herman Bushnell hauled cement from Julesburg and made a large stone and cement block opera house in Oshkosh. The porch built in front of the building was floored with cement. This was before the county division and was the first cement porch or sidewalk laid in Deuel county.