No single epic in the history of Dawes county holds so much of human interest as the story of the pioneer homebuilders who faced the drouth, the panic and the low prices of the '90's. The pathos of those drouth stricken days, when stout hearts yielded to disheartening conditions; those days "when all the west went broke," was an experience never to be forgotten by those who witnessed or were a part of the exodus of a large portion of our people from their homes in poverty and in doubt as to where they would go or what the future had in store for them. The industrial conditions prevailing elsewhere were not inviting to those now impoverished who had so recently been home owners and land owners of Dawes county.

Much could be written of the individual struggle by business and professional men and farmers to avert the failures they were so helpless to escape, when poverty was a normal condition, and the resources of the country were so dried up that the business man could not help the farmer nor vice versa ; when many business men closed their doors and went home

to the "wife's folks," and farmers loaded their belongings into prairie schooners and bade farewell to homes and surroundings upon which the affections and hopes had been placed, and tracked east or west to commence over again. Mention of the conditions prevailing which molded the lives of our people at that time would be incomplete unless tribute was paid to the courage and resourcefulness of the women. Men may excel in physical courage, but the moral courage displayed by the women generally in those sombre days was fully sufficient to warrant any student of human nature in concluding that in time of universal and long drawn out disaster and hardship the women can carry the heavy load.