Omaha daily bee., 1885-10-13
From Ernnticr to INar1n

that will hardly attract less attention.
Like the predecessor, it deals with the
phenomenal progress from farm to from.
tier which has been so characteristic of
Ncbraska's growth during the past ten
years, and which during the last i've
has pushed forward with such rcmarka.
bic strides
Ten years ago, the hundrcdth mcrid-
ian or the center of Buffalo county, was
considered the extreme limit of arabic
lands westward in Nebraska. That
vast domain which stretches from near
Kcarncy to the Wyoming line was given
over by the wisdom of editors and the
ignorance of the great majority of others
to grazing purposes. There were few
who saw in the rich praries covered with
bunch grass, from which the buffalo had
hardly passed, the possibilities of fields
of waving grain and broad acres of vel
low corn. 70 eastern Nebraska it was
still the frontier and doomed by the nat
| ural laws of climate to remain so per.
petually.
| Nature does not always take men into
| her secrets The limit of arabic land in
| Nebraska has steadily pushed westward
year by year. Rain has followed freely
! in the tracks of the settler who has dared
to break the sod. For u hundred miles
west of Kcarncy the farmers have taken
| up nearly every acre of the land which
was considered worthless ten years ago
and for two hundred miles farther west
| the prairie is dotted with the little dug.
outs and more pretentiouS sod-houses OF
| farmer pioneers. Buffalo county on the
| lst of last June contained l4,5l3 popula.
| ton and boasted of 1881 farms, Dawson
| county, still farther west, of g., no inhabit-
ants and $500 farms, and Lincoln, Its
next door ncighbor, of 5000 population
| and 3j33 tracts under cult walton.
But two counties along the line
of the Union Pacific remain
to he settled up before the western limit
of the state is reached, viz; Keith and
Cheyenne, whose condition has been so
graphically set forth in the columns of
the BEE by General Thayer. If their
growth is Mt all commensurate with that
of their Immediate neighbors, the census
VI lC'b w III Stj lIl' tllllIt tI=Nf Etill tlilAN
of the rainlcss frontier in Nebraska.
According to our last state census, the
counties of Buffalo, Dawson and Lincoln
have more than doubled in population
and now contain in the ncghborhood of
30, 600 Inhabitants, while Keith has grown
from a cattle shipping region with less
than two hundred floating population to
a county which in June last counted up
1900 inhabitants and ut the present. time
claims, and undoubtedly has, nearer
5000. The remarks made about the eX-
tension of agriculture and growth of
population along the Union Pacific APP
ply with even more force to the develop
ment in northwestern and southwestern
Nebraska. The census of 1880 omits
from its lists the counties of Brown,
Cherry, Sheridan and Dawes, whose COM
bined population, according to the state
census taken last June, was II, 740, and
which cannot to-day be less than 10000.
Holt county, in 1880, reported :, 1887 popu-
lation. 1t comes up smiling in this
year of grace 1885 with more than 10000.
In the region from O'Ncil to the Wyo-
ming line, which five years ago contained
by census less than 1000 people, more
than 10000 inhabitants are now making
their living, and 1000 farms are in pro-
cess of cultivation. The cold statistics of
to-day are the best reply to the fore
bodings of the wiseacres of the last de-
cade.
In the south Platte country the progress
from frontier to farm has gone on with
scarcely less yigor. AS in the case of the
most northern counties, the greatest de-
velopment is noted in that which had
been considered most worthless. The
growth of that tier of counties
lying directly south of Dawson, Lincoln
and Keith shows an increase of popula-
ton from 12, 115 to 90, $50, while the lower
most counties report an increase of some
5000 in u total of $4,000 present popula-
ton.
The rich valley of the Loup, the coun-
ties of Sherman, Valley, Loup, Wheeler,
and Custer, which have remained more
or less isolated, and ignored for so long
because of their isolation, join the process
sion of their sisters in western Nebraska
development. Five years ago Custer re-
ported 2,2l7 inhabitants. To-day she
stands credited with 1899, In 1880 Sher-
man was thinly settled with 1901. Five
years later she had more than doubled
her population with Valley, Loup and
Wheeler with the same record
The frontier, rs may be seen from these
statistics of our states marvellous growth,
is being year by year crowded towards
the Wyoming line Man is assisting
nature in changing the face of tho coun-
try, Groves and orchards, pastures and
ploughed land, farm houses, churches
and schools and prosperous towns are
rapidly erasing the old time desert from
the face of the map. Year by year its
extent has been contracted. Five years
from now, who is prepared to say that it
will exist except in memory
-
Blasted Reputation.
The sudden death of Judge Theodore
WnsthrnnE in Nau Yorl, Iast mail