Miss Susan Karnes, of Loudenville, Ohio, had become Mrs. Akers, and together they reasoned that there were greater opportunities in the west. Captain Akers hung out his shingle in Fort Collins in 1882.

Mrs. Akers was preparing to join him. She had a sale of the most of their household effects, and went to a neighbors to spend the night. On the morrow she was to journey to far off wonderful Colorado to join her husband.

The papers the next morning, contained the names of the dead and injured in the terrible Grinnell cyclone, and Mrs. Aker's name was among the dead, and Miss Cora Akers badly injured. Thus was the joy of anticipation changed to gloom and Captain Akers went east as fast as steam and steel would carry him. Back again in the land of the setting sun, but the zeal for law had died. He went out upon a farm, and here came to him the inspiration that marked him for her own. Irrigation -- that ancient-modem science -- claimed and chained his intellect and activities, first a galley slave, and then a master in the conquest of the arid west.

He heard of the great North river, with its mighty volume of water and its fertile acres, where no white people lived except the cowmen, and few real homes had foundations.

Captain Akers, Virgil Grout, and John Coy saw the possibilities of the rich soil, and abundant waters, and here they laid the foundations of their future homes.