With the sound of his ax and hammer as he fashioned his log shanty, came the echo of these tools as they helped to fashion the first rude school house.

Or, if you please, the stubborn sod, which parted from its mother earth that the plainsman mijjht build a home for himself and family, had* its companion turf peeled back clean cut and left to dry in the sun for the school house of the settler's children.

In at least one instance native gravel and rock entered into the composition of a grout school.

In one case, the new settlers poor in worldly wealth but rich in ambition and Yankee ingenuity, dug a cave in the hillside and secured a schoolma'am to teach their growing children the mysteries of the three R's and the alphabet.

Sometimes the summer crop rewarded the sturdy farmer with an abundance of grain. There are those now living in Scotts Bluff county who started to school within the sheltering confines of a school house constructed of bales of straw.

All honor to the ambition and perseverance of the early pioneer and pathbreaker whose foundations made possible more pretentious and useful superstructures. Within the meager walls of crude buildings his children learned Well, besides book learning, many lessons of patriotism and community welfare ; of honesty, industry, and thrift; of steady self-reliance, without which virtues no nation can build success fullv.

The First District

The first school district formed in Scotts Bluff county was organized by our first County