With a State Normal School, an annual pay roll of nearly a million dollars from the railroad, and a rich agricultural community, Chadron bids fair to become a city of ten thousand people.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

SETTLEMENT AND INDIAN DAYS IN DAWES COUNTY

Quite a few made their filings on land without having seen it. relying upon statements made by locators residing at Valentine. These agents had only a general idea as to the quality and lay of land, and result was a few settlers who made entries in this way were disappointed with selections made through proxy.

During the summer of 1884 a great rush of homeseekers made entries under the pre-emption and timber culture acts at Valentine land office, but only a comparative few established actual residence on lands before the spring of 1885.

Peter B. Nelson, with his wife, Olaffine, and two children, Nellie and Ernest, antedate any of the other settlers of the county by several

The new arrivals were mostly young, and eager to quickly build up new homes and convert the prairie into garden patches and grain fields, and the activity displayed on every hand was convincing proof to the few old timers that a new era for Dawes county was an accomplished fact.

By the fall of 1885 the population of the country districts was larger than at the present day, for the reason that the lands of the county as a rule are now owned in larger tracts. Up to 1892 but few had turned their attention to stock-raising, and they in a very modest way.