A good grasp of the state of progress then made by Kimball county can be secured from that portion of a booklet issued in 1886 by a "Guide to the Lands cf Cheyenne County." issued that year by the members of the Real Estate Association of Cheyenne county, Nebraska. Those members of that association then living within the present confines of Kimball county were: Jones & Stevens, S. F. Fleharty and Theo. Menges of Kimball and James Newell of Bushnell. Of the Kimball region, these enthusiastic advocates of western Nebraska said :

"Attention was directed last fall (1885) to an immense area of rich agricultural valley and table land in the vicinity of Pumpkin Seed creek, from twenty-five to forty miles north and northwest of Kimball. Since that time not less than three hundred people have become permanent residents of that locality. They are raising fine crops this year, and will soon have all the advantages of long settled communities. The improvement of the country has also been rapid in the immediate vicinity of Kimball. All of the valuable claims near the railroad have been taken. Nine hundred tree claims and eight hundred homesteads and pre-emption claims have been taken in this section of the country tributary to Kimball. There are still about five thousand claims vacant. The beginning of the present crop season was very unfavorable ; all over the country there was a phenomenal drought, our state suffering with the rest, though the drouth ended in Cheyenne county several weeks earlier than in other parts of the country. Heavy rains in the early part of July saved our crops ; after that time, at frequent intervals for several weeks, the whole of western Nebraska was abundantly supplied with rain. Our future is no longer an unsolved problem. With confidence we invite our eastern friends to come and invest their capital in this flourishing part of the yet unsettled West.