Although quite soft and friable when first taken out of the quarry, it hardens on exposure to the air, and, in a few weeks after such exposure, makes very good foundation stone. The seam at Tekamah, where it is worked, is twenty feet thick, and it crops out on both sides of Tekamah Creek for considerable distance. Limestone is found in limited quantities in the northern part of the county, and there is also an abundance of clay, from which a fine quality of brick is made, though Milwaukee brick is generally used for the outside of buildings. Less than one-third of the land in the county has been brought under cultivation, the number of acres reported for 1880 being 79,000, while the number of uncultivated acres was 197,500. There was no cultivated meadow reported.
Winter wheat is raised only as an experiment, or on a piece of land especially well protected.
There are quite a number of farmers in the county who winter from eight hundred to one thousand heard of cattle, as it is more profitable to feed out corn than to sell it. The first of these was erected on Logan Creek in 1864, and the last of the four was built at Tekamah in the fall of 1881, where it was very much needed. The foundation walls of this mill are of the sandstone in the immediate vicinity. The Omaha Indians occupied this county previous to and at the time of its settlement by the white people. In the Spring of 1855, they were removed to their present reservation in Blackbird County, in accordance with the treaty between them and the Government, effected in March, 1854.