People drifted away until half the houses seemed empty and property depreciated in value and in many instances sold for less than half the first cost. In these days it was a wide open town. Saloons, gambling houses and restaurants were open at all hours. At first money seemed plentiful. It was stacked in heaps on the gambling tables, but finally their business began to wane. While Chadron seemed to be going to the bad, there was still an optimistic spirit in the breast of its real people. The town was always a trifle sensational. It was constantly doing things that no other town ever did. A hundred mile race was pulled off.
On the day of the race a withering, blistering simoon set in from the south and before night Mike Elmore's beautiful thoroughbred succumbed to exhaustion ; half the horses were dead on the field and the race was won by a cayuse that belonged to Jim Dahlman and was ridden by Frank Hartsell, worth about fifty dollars. Then a Chadron to Chicago race was organized. The entries were Doc Middleton, the one time famous Nebraska outlaw, but
then a peaceable law abiding citizen of Chadron, residing on Shelton street in a neat cottage which he had erected, and now owned by Willis Schenek ; John Berry, the C. & N. W. advance scout ; Joe Gillespie, cowboy and horse wrangler ; Emmet t Albright, a sure thing man, and Charles W. Smith, all of Nebraska; David Douglas, Spearfish, South Dakota ; George Jones, Whitewood, South Dakota; Rattle Snake Pete Stevens, Kansas ; and Joe Campbell, of Indian Territory.