"The next morning a wagon train consisting of some half dozen ox-wagons, rumbled laboriously along the Oregon Trail and wound its way up the North Platte valley. A halt was made near a singular, conicalshaped phenomenon, called by Washington Irving 'The Chimney.'

"Some of the party from the ox-wagons climbed Old Sig'nal Hill, and standing on its summit in the exact place where Old Spotted Elk had stood the evening before, gazed over the same picturesque panorama.

" 'Let us stop here,' said one. 'Here is grass for our cattle. Why go further and fare worse?'

"The next summer the hills and table lands were dotted with houses.

"The ranches were gradually giving way to the homesteaders, who flocked here from the east, and thus began the real settlement of the North Platte valley. Schools were started, churches were organized, and during this period of development the murky waters of the river lay in basking sunlight as though waiting its time.

"Then came the master mind, which conceived the idea of utilizing the Platte and bringing its life-giving waters upon the thirsty fields and parching plains. Thus was solved the problem of the hot summer months.

"The large volume of water in the river, the wide bottom lands, and the long, gentle slopes of the table lands afforded ideal conditions for irrigation. From the building of the first irrigation ditch in about 1887, to the completion of the Tri-State Ditch in 1911, and the Government Ditch a little later, the country has developed, step by step, until there are now some 275,000 acres of land under irrigation in the North Platte valley. This has been brought into a high state of cultivation, until it is fast becoming one of the richest sections in the world."