The official roster of the North Platte Valley Water Lasers Association is interesting. Few of the incorporators have held office for any length of time. Of the original seventeen, ten have never been officials. Five of these still are farming under the government ditch. Three others who have held office are farmers under the project. Of the present officials I think only one had land in the project at the time the organization was created. Wenzil Hiersche has had the longest term of office, beginning with the first creation of the institution, November 14, 1904, he served on the board without intermission for more than sixteen years. In 1921, he is succeeded by Wr. Clyde F. Smith, who has been a farmer of the same neighborhood for the same length of time, and now for the first time an official.

Going Back

Following the narrative of irrigation development, the story has forward and backward movement, like a story in the press. In the early nineties Gilchrist, Mead & lohnson, of

Cheyenne, made a proposition to the people of Gering and vicinity, to build a south side canal on the basis of seven dollars for a perpetual water right, and a fixed charge of $1.50 per acre per year for maintainance. This proposition met with considerable favor and would no doubt have been made had not two discouraging elements injected themselves at that time.

The Belmont and Froid affair was just then receiving an airing, and was referred to as the "Belmont & Fraud" canal. Bering & Brothers, of London, were behind the Cheyenne aggregation, and just at that time they blew up, which made the immediate raising of funds by Gilchrist, Mead & Johnson, an impossible task.