Omaha daily bee., 1885-10-12
VIEWS AND INTERVIEWS.
Dr. ConkIing on Northern Nebraska

DIR. Conkling on Northern Nebraska.
II have had the 'hoomlngeSt time in the
'boumingcst' country ever saw" remarked
DR.. Cuukling. Where have YOU been -
he was asked, II have been up in north
western Nebraska for the last five
weeks said he; ~ have been hunting,
and 'roughing it, and taking i'm the
country generally. II will do any man good
to go up there. There is plenty of game
prairie chickens, geese grouse, and ducks
The country Is full of lakes and the lakes are
full of ducks. While | was up there /
had all the hunting | wanted. When
| was not hunting, | lived on sowbelly
hardtack and coffee, and | have come
back with an immense appetite and
a thoroughly reconstructed and rein
vigomtcd constitutions" lis the country
settling up as rapidly as reported. and did
You visit Chadron." asked the BEE man. ~
never saw anything like the way the ueoplc
are pouring into that section OF the state"
replied the doctor. The country is pretty
well taken up. Claims have been taken up
covering the country for sixty miles south Of
Valentine, and north to the Dakota line, and
from Valentine to Chadron Men will sit
down on a claim at night, and the next
morning they will ask from 500 to $1,000 for
their claims. On Sand creek they want
$1,000 for claims, on account of the hay lands
The land in the valleys in northwestern
Nebraska Is adapted to agricultural purposes
while the sand hills are good grazing
lands.
%&x
"Did visit Chadron? Yes: and ivelirr
town never saw. 1t is hardly three months
old, and it has about 1000 people. Talk about
life! ChadrOn is the place to see it, At
night you will see the stakes set for build
ing on Il vacant lot, and the next day there
will be buldingOn itand occupied etheras Il
saloon Il store, a gambling shop or u family
residence. Manyof the people have been liv-
ing in tents and sheds, and some of them are
living that way yet. Chadron is a typical
frontier town. 1t is at the terminus of the
railroad. That makes it lively. All kinds Of
gambling Is in full blast there-farO, poker,
stud-pOlicr, roulette, keno, Spanish monte,
hazard and other games all of which run
twcnty-fOur hours day and are literally
patronizCd. The town is full of gamblers.
salOOn-kccpeIs, cowboys, freighters, specula-
tors, and other characters that are always
found in n rushing frontier place. Shooting
scrapes are of almost daily occurrence and
the report of II revolver startlcs no one more
than iirc-cracker OF the popping of a beer
bottle. paid Il visit TO one of the newspaper
Offices. 1t was in a lcan'to,' seven feet wide
and eleven feet long. and hardly high enough
for an ordinary man to straighten up in.
About the liveliest things in Chadron are the
tleas. They are not only numerous but pow
crful. The first night | stayed there they
rolled me out of bed, and wouldn't let me go
to sleep again. But after night or two Il
man gets used to them, and doesn't pay any
more attention to them than he does to bed
bugs, which. by the way, are about as numer-
Gus as the fleas.
%%x
Freight is rolling into Chadlon at an inn
mense rate, and it is difficult to find teams
and freightcrS enough TO haul it to the Black
Hills, to which most of it is destined. Al
though there is big freight depot at Cha
drOn, there is so much freight accumulated
there that it has to be stored in freight cars.
L saw lifty-twO cars side-tTacled and used for
freight storage. The wagon roads to the
Black Hills in dry weather are as hard aui
smooth as asphalt pavement, put i'm rainy
Weathef tleS arc 'n""ttuy and sticky, the
stlcKy l!iu" and grass being called 'gumbO'
l.ladron has become Il great cattle shipping
point. A large number of shippers who used
to drive to the Union Pacific now drive to
ChadrOn and ship through to Chicago. one
day | saw twenty-five cars loaded with cattle
that had been driven up from Sidney. Most
of the cattlemen are down on the Union Pa
cilic That railroad has lost its grip on the
cattle trade. The way they run trains on the
Sioux City q Pacific is a caution. The freight
and cattle trains run on lightning express
time, and have the right of way. Passenger
trains are sidetIackcd to let them have free
run. Cattle trains are run from Chadron to
Missouri Valley in seventeen hours and a
half The fact is, that the Sioux City & Pa
cilic and Chicago az Northwestern have cap
tured the Black Hills trade and large part
of the cattle business of Nebraska, Wyom-
ing and Dakota. The Sioux City
q Pacific is being extended to
Rapid city, 112 miles distant, to which it will
be completed early next summer Buffalo
Gap is 5G miles beyond Chadron, just
half way to Rapid City. The line to Rapid
City is the Black Hills branch from Chadron.
The main line proceeds directly west from
ChadrOn, and will be rapidly pushed on TO a
junction with the Central Pacific at Ogden.
When the trains begin running beyond
Chadron the boom will drop out Of that town,
as it has out of Valentine but, like Valen-
tine, it will become a steady-going, substan-
tial and prosperous place
Talking about game up in that country
the greatest game is 'sinch.' Ii is played by
the Sioux City q Pacific. 1t has got tho
'sinch' on that section just the same as the
Union Pacific used to have on the region
tributarytO tOit. The freight charge to ChadrOn
is the same as the charge to Valentine,
although Valentine Is about l4O miles east of
Chadron. The people up there are very
friendly to Omaha, and take great pride in
the metropolis, but they find it impossible to
do business with OMAHA on account of the
determinations on the part of the Sioux City
q Pacific in favor of Chicago. They all want
Omaha to build road of her own to the
northwest, giving that country direct
communication with the metropolis
of the state They will vote bonds
to "A liberal amount | saw one man
from AnswOrth who said Brown county
would bond itself for 100000 to help an
Omaha road that would run through that
county. Everybody inquired If anything was