USA > Nebraska > Seward County > General history of Seward County, Nebraska > Part 19
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
Crossing has not improved since that colapse is evident and the reason obvious. It is difficult to resurect a dead town, especially after such discouraging circumstances have driven the best and most enterprising business men from it.
Beaver Crossing passed through its pioneer period in a creditable manner after many years, but it entered and pass- ed through its devastating booming period during the one year of 1887 leaving it in a more helpless condition than that of the former period. And it was doomed to still farther depressions as results of its being unable to overcome mis- fortune, but it was on a fair road to recovery when along in 1904 and 1905 it got an undesirable apportionment of busi- ness individuals that would be as sure death to a town as a grain of strychnine would to a rat. There were five in this consignment and they did not hesitate to engage in any kind of dirty spite work that seemed the least popular and had a banker and state senator at the head of it. In fact their addition to that kind of element constituted about half of the spite engendering dirty gang of the place. But the "last grain of sand" more than the town could bear was the addition to the newcomers of the renouned editor Fred. C. Diers, a man that could not look a hog in the face, much less a man. And this sickning dose to the already distressed and weakly little place would not have been so blightening a curse to its interests and welfare had he and his foolishness not been indorsed by those who claimed to be the whole town. It was well known that there was a committee of the gang running to different towns in the country hunting just such a character until he was found. And they did not only indorse his folly in advance of his coming, but they poisoned his mind with their own sour and depraved dispositions, giving the fool the impression that the whole town was at his feet and ready to surrender its interests and good name to serve him if he would only do their low down work and help
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
them destroy a hated man's business who had presumed to question the honor and ability of the august personage who was so honorably and abley leading the crusade of spite and was short just the amount it required to make up Diers to complete the list of assistants. And Diers was no worse than the others, but his part of the program was more open to the public. . He acted in accordance with their wishes and in doing so gave the honest citizens of the place a shamed face by calling himself and his silly paper their "Pride, " or what amounted to the same thing "The Pride of Beaver Crossing."
Now this matter may seem small and unworthy of notice, but it is history and I see no way to avoid the issue. And it is large enough to amount to a dark page of damaging effect upon the prosperity of the beautiful little village of Beaver Crossing. As the scheme did not result as it was intended and expected to, in the injury of a private citizen, that individual being found amply able to stand by his rights and take care of himself, what else could the treachery, in- trigue, and low trickery, continued in for months by one-half or more of the so called business men of a town, amount to but serious injury to the prosperity of the place? To briefly state the case I will say that because one man had chosen to exercise his right as an American citizen and failed to sup- port a young ignoramous for an office he did not cosider him fit for, the young aspirant for ever office in sight, commenced a fight against the aforesaid citizen and the element known as the gang took sides with him. The despised citizen was editor of the home paper and the work of spite progressed in the aforesaid search for a printer to-as they termed it-run said editor out of the business. Some of the more rash ones would not even consider a proposition to buy him out. They were after his scalp and nothing but the raising of his hair would appease their wrath. In their search the only speci-
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
men of humanity they found that would engage in such an undertaking was this man Diers. But he had no money. In order to supply this deficiency they started a stock con- spiracy, the object of which was publicly stated, to be the boycotting and destruction of the said offensive citizens bus- iness. And each member of this conspiracy was required to put up fifty dollars or more to raise the funds to aid Diers in starting his part of the good work. He got the money and bought the printing plant from the former editor as he thought it was easier to buy him out than to run him out. And now the fun opens up in earnest. Diers had been led by the gang to think that they were the ruling element and that there was no possible chance for the other fellow to rise from the wreckage of his business, and Mr. Diers felt safe in the bosom of his admiring benefactors. But "it is a long road that has no turn," and the former editor purchased `a new printing plant and started another paper called "The Independent Examiner," which examined too close to the skin for the gang and they slowly but surely withdrew their incouragement from Diers and one by one sold and disposed of their business and sneaked out of the town, four of the later arrivals having made their exite in about a year, Diers turning the paper over to his brother to close out, followed shortly after. And it is a matter worthy of note that the entire outfit that composed that gang, with the exception of one, and possibly two have found it to their interest to hunt another location. Why? Because their own ignorant con- duct had brought upon them and the town an unaccountable depression in business as compared with any other town in the county. "What you sow you shall reap." This became apparent, the "running out" scheme took on a back action and amid the prevailing quietness a lot of sneaking out was in order.
Beaver Crossing has three rural free delivery mail routes,
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
all of which were established in 1903 with Lucian Wash car- rier on route number one, Pierce Dygert on route number two and W. A. Wilsey on route number three. Routes number two and three were established with carriers who had circulated the petitions, but after P. G. Tyler had suc- ceded in getting sufficient petitioners for the establishing of route number one he was turned down, perhaps through ad- vice of some of "the gang" and a very unqualified young man given his route. The carriers now are Roy Huffman on route one, Pierce Dygert on route two and Al. Caswell on route three. These routes raised the post office from a fourth to a third class office and has done more good for the town than any other three things in it, although their estab- lishment was contrary to the wishes of nearly every business man in the place, opposition to them being based on the ' grounds that with routes carrying mail to their doors farmers would not come to town. This was an opinion shared in to a large degree by other towns in the county which might be named, where the posmaster, following the requests of their tradesmen, threw the petitions when presented for the post- master's endorsement and forwarding to the proper depart- ment, into the waste basket. The result of this was that rural routes from other postoffices ran up so close to the limits of their village there was no room for them to get a route. And when they saw farmers, residing right close to them, driving away on Saturday evenings and othor times when they were expecting mail that they wanted sooner than the carrier would bring it, to the town their mail was deliv- ed from, the desire for routes was an increasing torment to them. Some of them got a short route or two, close round their town and some of them are still on the anxious seat for "just one route." The postoffice has two hundred and fifty private mail boxes, the same number it had twenty years ago, the increas in this branch of the service having been
HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA. 239
confined entirely to the limits of the village by the rural routes. G. W. Norriss is the present postmaster.
The town has several substantial, and up-to-date business houses, and quite a number of the less portentious, chaper wooden buildings, relics of the previous mentioned boom.
The amount of business Beaver Crossing is doing I am unable to state, but feel safe in saying that it is still doing a good "cross roads" business. There are many excellent men in the different branches of business and some of the other kind too, just like any other town. I. L. Dermond is still in the mercantile trade and conducting it in the manner he has for twenty years; W. O. Johnson & Co., recent comers, are running a general merchandise store in the Eager building; one hardware and harness store is run by W. L. Cook; one hardware and grocery store by Earl Eager; one drug and grocery store by Chas. Simonton & Co. ; one drug store by T. H. Lyon; one furniture and implement store by James Evans; one furniture and implement store by Danskin & Lowe; one grain elevator run by the Nye, Schnieder, Fowl- er Company, and one by the Farmers' Grain Company; there are two banks, the Citizens State Bank and the State Bank of Beaver Crossing, both located in modern bank build- ings; one lumber yard conducted in the name of the Barstow Grain Company which recently sold their elevator to the Farmers Grain Co., and the Nye, Schnider Company runs a lumber yard; both grain companies sell coal; Chas. E. Gentry is the undertaker and sells pictures, frames, glass and no- tions; Chas. Luce keeps all kinds of jewelry; a new electric shoe shop is run by Oliver Hess; Ed. Warnke runs a first class bakery; there are two barber shops, two ten cent stores, one opera house, one skating rink, one hotel, one livery and feed stable, two hospitals; one by Dr. C. O. Petty and the other is conducted by Drs. Doty & Hickman; two blacksmith shops; Jacob McCord runs the east shop and John Witter
1
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
runs one on Mill street. Dr. Hewit is the dentist, and Judge A. Leavens, attorney at law. James Barnes deals in fresh and salt meats and ice. The town supports four automobile garages, and half supports one news and job printing office. E. A. McNeil is the editor and has been giving the town the usual heaping and running over measure of local newspaper support for the past ten years, and he at least has the auth- or's sympathy. (The statement, which has already gone in print on page 238 of this work, that the Beaver Crossing ru- ral mail routes were established in 1903 is an error. They started December Ist, 1902.)
Beaver Crossing has a population of about eight hundred, contains many modern residences, two pioneer residences, one occupied by George Winand and family was built in 1872 by Grand father Nichols, later becoming the property of Edward Maul, father of Mrs. George Winand; and the second pioneer building was built by Ross Nichols in 1869 upon his homestead, and is now the Beaver Crossing Hos- pital, and many other good and comfortable dwellings. It has several very beautiful streets and shady lawns. Cement sidewalks extend throughout the town. It has a twelve grade high school and five churches, the Evangelical, Methodist, Catholic, Christian and Church of God.
VILLAGE OF GERMANTOWN.
Germantown in - H- precinct in the north part of the county is a pioneer town. It has had a fair share of the gen- eral prosperity of Seward county towns since the closing of the pioneer period. It has a population of about five hund- red; has one rural free delivery mail route, Charles Wyant being the carrier, and there are one hundred and twenty pri- vate mail boxes in the post office; it has a ten grade high school and two churches, the Lutheran Congregational and Evangelical.
Its up-to-date business houses number twenty and it con-
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
ยท tains one hundred residences. The Folley Theater, owned by Louis Meyers, is a modern structure fine enough for a city. The hotel is owned and managed by Paul Kafke; one res- taurant is under the management of Henry Zimmerman; one lumber yard, the Home Lumber Company, proprietors; two general mercantile stores, one run by Robert Beckman who has been in the business fifteen years; and the other is con- ducted by Meyers & Haus; two coal dealers, one the Home Lumber Company, and the other Louis Meyers, who runs one of the two elevators, the second elevator being managed by the Farmers Grain Company; James Blackwood deals in pumps and windmills; Wm. Gannon runs the one barber shop; one furniture and hardware store conducted by Wm. Groats; one state bank, August Beckman cashier; one meat market, Adolph Haas proprietor; one blacksmith shop run by Carl Koch; one harness shop by Fred Roehorkasse; the town has two automobile garages; it has one of the best creameries in the state.
Germantown was one of the early towns in the county, having been laid out in 1873, just after the B. & M. rail road was run through to Seward.
THE VILLAGE OF PLEASANT DALE.
This is one of the most correctly named villages in Sew- ard county. Its location in the narrow vale between the un- dulating hills of Middle creek, forms a shady nook, while the scenery up and down the valley is pleasing and attract- ive. A postoffice was established there in the early seventies by James Iler, under the present name of the place, but the town was among the latest established towns in the county. The B. & M. rail road, first called the A. & N., came through the dale in 1879 and the townsite was laid out in 1883, the post office was moved to town and a store opened. The school was later moved to town also, and a market for grain opened up and the town of Pleasant Dale was on the map.
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
Pleasant Dale at the present time is a busy little village of about two hundred inhabitants. Its post office has one hundred and fifty private mail boxes, and two rural free de- livery mail routes are in operation from it. W. L. Wallace is the carrier on route number one and Percy peterson on route two.
The town has a graded high school, and two churches, the M. E. and Lutheran; it contains ten business houses and thirty-five residences. It has one elevator, managed by E. J. Newton; one bank, A. F. Akerman, cashier; one lumber yard, W. C. Newman proprietor; one hotel, managed by C. H. Oxbery; one restaurant run by C. McGowan; one harness shop by F. C. Thomas; one livery stable, A. C. Castle pro- prietor; one implement and hardware store, E. J. Newton proprieter; one grocery store run by J. W. Dillenbeck; one general mercantile store by C. Uthe; one drug store by C. McGowen; one meat market; one physician, Dr. Wm. San- dusky; J. A. Gammell conducts a pump and windmill busi- ness. The town has about two miles of cement sidewalks. It is located in - I- precinct.
VILLAGE OF STAPLEHURST.
Staplehurst is in -C- precinct, in the northern portion of the county. It has developed a notable advancement in pro- gress since the pioneer period. In fact it can hardly be call- ed a pioneer town. It was founded in 1879, but was back- ward in growth for some time. Along about 1883 an ad- dition to the village was laid out by Goehner & Company and business houses and numerous dwelling houses were er- rected. Two grain elevators were built, and the place begin- ing to show signs of coming importance as a shipping point, started upon a healthy and prosperous career.
Staplehurst has a population of about four hundred. It has two good banks; a ten grade high school; three churches; one rural mail route; three general merchandise stores, one
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
lumber yard, two meat markets, one hardware store, two blacksmith shops, one livery stable, and several other busi- ness establishments of more or less importance, indicating that the town has shared in the general new era prosperity of the county.
VILLAGE OF TAMORA.
Six miles west of Seward, in -F- precinct, is located one of the latter day pioneer towns of Seward county. It was founded and laid out in 1879. P. G. Tyler was its first post master and built the first residence in the town. The grain market of Tamora was started in 1879 by J. W. Scott who built a small grain warehouse and commenced the purchase of grain. A store was opened the same year by William Butler. An ellevator was built in 1881 by Morrisey brothers and T. W. Lowery built another the next year. It has at the present time about three hundred inhabitants, numerous dwelling and business houses, a good, 12 grade high school, three churches, several stores, one lumber yard, three eleva- tors and one bank, the Farmers Exchange. Tamora has no rural mail route.
A small boom was started at Tamora in 1893. A large business building, covering nearly one business block in the village was commenced. It was to be almost a "sky scrap- er," to go four stories high above the basement. And the basement was built in fine shape, made of stone or cement, which was divided into several seperate store rooms by stone walls. The foundation for an immense structure could not have been excelled in any city, and it was currently reported that the project was being pushed by city capital, with a view to the removal of the county seat to Tamora, as it was near the center of the county. But it developed finally that the whole affair was originated and planned by a young man whose brain was upset with success in a deal on the board of trade, and the castle never got higher than the foundation.
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
I have now concluded the details of conditions of Seward county towns at the present time, 1916, which were written up in the beginning of this work as pioneer towns, and a comparison of their present situation with that of the former period may show the general advancement of prosperity throughout the county.
The following villages were not pioneer towns, but dis- play the advanced state of progress since the close of the pioneer period.
VILLAGE OF BEE.
This village is located in a prosperous farming district, in -B- precinct in the north-eastern portion of the county. It was founded in 1887; is on the Chicago & North Western rail road, has a population of about two hundred and fifty, and is as busy as its name indicates. The post office is fourth class and has one rural free delivery mail route. It has a good high school and two churches. Minnie Dunigan was Bee's first postmistress, and her father, Michael Dunigan was one of the founders of the place. There are a number of substantial busines houses, and about seventy-five dwell_ ing houses.
The general criterion of the business of a town in the west is its grain elevators and stock market. Bee has two large elevators and its stock market is second to no village in the county. It has one bank, one hotel, a blacksmith shop, one hardware store, a drug store, one lumber yard, one implement store, two general mercantile stores, two grocery stores, and other minor business enterprises.
VILLAGE OF GOEHNER.
This is the second modern time town laid out on the F. & M. V. rail road in Seward county. It was founded in 1887 and bears the name of one of Seward's most prosprous busi- ness men, Hon. John F. Goehner, who represented this sen- atorial district in the state senate in 1884, and did very much
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
towards securing the C. & N. W. railway line through the county, the town of Goehner being named in his honor. It is located in -K- precinct, almost in the center of both the precinct and the county, is seven miles north-east of Beaver Crossing and nine miles south-west of Seward. Its popula- tion is about one hundred and fifty. The business of the town is similar to that of Bee. It has a graded school and three churches. Two elevators, one bank, two general mer- cantile stores, one hardware store. It has no rural mail route.
VILLAGE OF CORDOVA.
Cordova is located in the south-west quarter of Seward county, seven miles south-west of Beaver Crossing. It was founded in 1887, the third new village on the line of the C. & N. W. rail road in the county. It was first called Hun- kinsville in honor of Benjamin Hunkins, an enterprising and respected early homesteader of the vicinity, but there being a town and postoffice of similar name in the state the town was renamed Cordova. Situated in an excellent area of farming land, and a prosperous community, the early enter- prises of the place soon placed it upon the map as one of Seward county's lively and growing towns.
The early business establishments of Cordova were two Elevators; three general stores, managed respectively by Rodeman & Son, C. W. Hunkins, and Vaughn & Peterson; one drug store, Dr. C. W. Doty proprietor; one hardware store run by Graff & Goodbrod; one furniture store, one ag- ricultural implement house, one harness shop, one lumber yard, one hotel, a bank, a barber shop, one blacksmith shop. Among the early public improvements was a good, graded school, and three church buildings were added in due time. In 1888 Joshua Warren, of Friend, erected a large wooden building from the wreckage of the old M. E. church building at that place; the lower part of the building was divided in- to three store rooms, and the upper part was used as an op-
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
era house, the structure being called Warren's Opera House, or Cordova Opera House to distinguish it from Warren's Opera House in Friend.
On a visit to Cordova in 1913 the writer was much sur- prised and pleased by the apparant change and improvement in the town; especially the residence portion with its many neat cottages, attractive lawns and clean streets. The old Warren's Opera House, which was sold to Dr. E. G. Wat- son, and known in later years as Watson's Opera House and finaly destroyed by fire, had been replaced by an impos- ing, two story brick building. This building has several store rooms on the lower floor, a finely arranged opera room, lodge room, and other rooms on the second floor, all of which are reached by broad, modern stairways from both the front and rear part of the building. There are several other im- proved buildings in the place among which is the State Bank which is certainly a beauty for a town the size of Cordova. Aside from the improvements two familiar objects are to be seen-the little 8x10 shanty post office and the hotel.
Cordova has a population of about three hundred. It has numerous business houses centered among a hundred residences, with cement sidewalks extending throughout the town. It has no rural mail route.
VILLAGE OF RUBY.
This little vill is scarcely on the map, but holds a place among the business centers of Seward county. It is located on the B. & M. rail road, about half way between Seward and Milford, in - J- precinct, and has a rich and productive area of farming land surounding it, but the two larger towns draw much of its business away from it. However it is not a dead town as it shows many signs of life and activity. It has a grain market supported by two grain elevators; two stores, a post office and such other places of business as are required to provide for the wants of the patrons of the place.
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HISTORY OF SEWARD COUNTY, NEBRASKA.
By looking over the foregoing historical record of modern achievements in lines of trade in merchandise and farm pro- docts in the towns of Seward county together with the ad- vantages of public schools, churches and places of social and public entertainment, and comparing them with the condition in the early pioneer days, the extent of the great progress which had its origin in the gloom of pioneer sod houses and its growth through the many long years of hopeful enterprise, will become plainly apparent. In those early times markets for any kind of farm products were forty and fifty miles dis- tant, while one little store and postoffice in a sod or log house within an area of fifteen miles was considered a priceless blessing. Sod and log school houses in about the same area answered the purpose for churches, public halls, election booths and court houses. In the towns of Seward county at the present time there are twelve grain markets, supplied with twenty-six large grain elevators, any one of which could handle and store the amount of grain raised in Seward coun- ty in 1870. In those towns there are fifteen opera houses and public halls, thirty-eight churches, thirty general stores, thirty- five exclusive stores, handling groceries, hardware, fur- niture, clothing etc. And there are twenty-one rural free delivery mail routes delivering mail daily to ever farm in the county, while farmers are in touch with neighbors and the local markets of the county by telephone.
The general reader of this work is invited to examine the conditions of the two periods as they are presented, bearing in mind at the same time, the fact that the advancements in the towns are the results of improved conditions throughout the rural districts. The improvements of farms and their products have made Seward county's prosperity.
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