Totten, and he at •once espoused the cause of a point west of Minatare, called Millstown, as a county seat contender, but after this idea was eliminated by the selection of Gering, its publication was continued at Bayard, and the sheet was purchased in July, 1889, by Col. Francis O. Wisner, a fine type of the old school journalist, and published by him until his death. Today it is still in a hearty condition with his son, R. A. Wisner, at the helm.

The county seat period was responsible for a number of newspapers in Banner county also. The peak birth rate was in 1888, when the list across the south hills included the various hopeful contenders for the county seat. The Freeport Gazette in the northeast part, J. J. Wilson being the publisher. An issue of this paper now before me lists E. M. Cowen, now of

Scottsbluff, as an advertiser, but later on he is found as publisher of the Early Day at Harrisburg, from which I conclude he acquired the plant and moved it there after Harrisburg won out. Centropolis was a proposed site less than a mile from Harrisburg, and C. H. Randall, who has since become known to fame as the California prohibition congressman, was the founder of the Centropolis World, of which a copy indicates he was the best real newspaper man of us all in those days. Ashford, in the northern part of the county, made a strong fight for the Banner county seat, and was really a good trading center already. They entered the campaign with a paper temporarily printed in my own office at Gering, called the Ashford Gazette. J. F. Gay, now in Iowa, was the nominal editor, but as I recall it W. W. White, now of Gering, C.