Scott, treasurer, and Marshall Hanwav. assessor

In 1914 the Belmont Company had transferred all its land in this county by contract to the Security Realty and Investment Company of Des Moines, colonization and immigrant agents. Messrs. A. R. Ryan of the Union Pacific. W. M. Dickson and J. F. Dulin of Des Moines, and I). Wilson of < >maha were active in the movement which for a time attempted the division of these lands into smaller tracts and the colonization. The Belmont Company kept the ownership of the canal until the district was organized by authorization of the vote of December 29. 1914.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

The low cost of water and the easy payments induced considerable speculation in land under this system. It did not cost much to let the land lie idle, and appreciate in value as the enterprising farmers alongside built up the community. These idle acres were a source of irritation to the resident people, and gave the section an ill-deserved reputation for being backward.

Belmont Land Deals

Early in 1919, a corporation known as the Farming Corporation of Omaha was organized with a capital stock of $100,000.00 for the purpose of buying and improving the Belmont lands in the Bridgeport irrigation district. Principal stock holders in the company were Skinner Bros., of Omaha, proprietors of the Skinner Packing Company and a number of other large institutions. Wm. Ritchie, Jr., and Mark Spanogle became president and local financier agents for the company and the law firm of Ritchie and Canaday. attorneys for the organization. The company started operations by buying eight farms of eighty acres each in the Bridgeport Irrigation district. They then planned good improvements for these farms and placed them for rent to responsible tenants on good terms. This company then laid plans not only to foster the sale of land in the Belmont district but to steadily increase the acreage to cultivation and in other ways develop this fertile valley.