When this fact was reported to Edward Creighton. his quick apprehension suggested what might be done by driving Texas cattle to Cheyenne county in the fall and turning them loose. Later he did turn a larger bunch of cattle loose in that locality and the remarkable manner in which they went through the winter caused that experiment to be repeated by Mr. Creighton and many others who had learned of the incident, and the cattle business, as we have known it, was the outgrowth. Thousands of dollars of eastern capital were invested and many large cattle companies formed in and around Boston and

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

Providence and the magnitude of that interest can be gauged by the numerous millionaires whose vast wealth can yet be traced to the second and third generations. All of that portion of western Nebraska lying on the west side of the 100th meridian became the empire of numerous cattle barons, who held undisputed sway until the army of homesteaders with almost unbroken front, marched up to the 100th meridian. But even after reaching that line they seem to have been held in check for several years, as if charmed or spellbound by that magnificent area of table land stretching with gentle, undulating slope to the very foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains. This vast area was covered with a thick coat of buffalo grass which as long as the virgin soil was not broken did not show a weed to mar the beaut}- of the surface. The peculiarity of this grass was not alone in its wonderful nutritious quality, but the fact that as it cured in the dry atmosphere and under the constant sunshine of our peculiar weather, it became coated as if with a thin covering of wax, which preserved its succulent qualities and made it as palatable for winter grazing as the greenest herbage in a blue grass pasture.