However, it is known that a few trappers had plied their vocation within its borders for short periods in earlier years, probably as early as 1873. A few Frenchmen had been adopted into the Sioux tribes, had married Indian women and were accustomed to camp on the various streams in summer and were units of the community camps established by the Indians in winter at various sites where fuel was available, for a number of years before 1878, but they were wanderers with no fixed abode. At least they never were permanent residents of the county. Tradition tells that an occasional cattleman came to look at the rich grass lands as early as 1875, and that a few venturesome spirits eager to explore the Black Hills region passed through its borders in the same year. Camp Robinson, at the present site of Fort Robinson, was established in 1876, and was thereafter garrisoned by soldiers, with Post Trader and a few civilian employees usual at frontier posts in those days, but they all belonged exclusively to the army and were here as transient campers only so long as their connection with the army continued. They were merely temporary residents of a military camp and did not class themselves as citizens of the county.

Prior to the state legislative session of 1883, the territory which is often called the panhandle of Nebraska, and comprising eleven counties at this date, was known as Cheyenne and Sioux counties. That part now comprising the counties of Sioux, Dawes, Box Butte, and Sheridan was unorganized and known as Sioux county, and was by statute attached to