Early Frontier County

Susan Doak

Southwest Nebraska Genealogy Society

Society members with longer tenure than I have commented quite often that our little genealogy library is one of the most extensive available in our three state corner. I believe that has to be true, because every time I enter the library looking for inspiration, I leave with incredible finds.

This latest sojourn centered on Frontier County. We have many books, cemetery listings and published memoirs of the towns and people of Frontier County, but the two that caught my eye were: PIONEERS, INDIANS and BUFFALOES, by Bayard H. Paine published in 1935, and the 1898 School Census, Frontier County Nebraska which was extracted from the hard copy census by the county superintendent, Ruby Kahler.

The school census is a fascinating collection of family names, school districts and post offices, many of which no longer exist. It is divided by: Head of Household, Spouse, Child Name, Age, Sex, School District, and Post Office.

There are numerous familiar family names including the Carters, Quicks, Duelands, Flocks, Metcalfs, Kotschwars, Kochs, Underwoods, and Rupperts. One thing to note is that all households were listed, even if they had no children. Guardianships were also listed as in the case of Pearl, Charles, and Minnie Brown, who are noted to be under the guardianship of F. Brown and the post office is Cambridge.

The familiar post offices of Stockville, Eustis, St. Ann, Quick and Moorefield are there, but so are some I don't recognize such as Stevens, Orafino, Freedom, Havana and Centerpoint. My curiosity was satisfied by pulling up Nebraska Place Names at www.usgennet.org and here's what I found.

Centerpoint was named simply because it was the center of the township and the school district. The post office was discontinued around the early 1920s.

Freedom was in the Knowles precinct and the assumption is made that it was named after an earlier post office established following the Civil War.

Havana was so named due to the Spanish American war for Havana, Cuba.

"Fine Ore" is the English meaning of Orafino (Spanish language) and that post office, located in the eastern part of the Lower Medicine precinct, was named by H. C. Rogers when he found iron pyrites in Mitchell creek.

Frank S. Stevens was the first postmaster of the town of Stevens. F. S. Steven's son, Glenn, was four years old at the time of the 1898 school census.

I'll cover the book in my next article, including the research references in it that I would love to have copies of for our library.

As a final note, when I was doing research on the Red Willow County Fair, I visited the McCook Public Library and took advantage of their microfilm copies of newspapers. While there, I met a gentleman who was researching William O. Bond of Bondville Precinct. He was finding only deadends to his research until I directed him to our Southwest Nebraska Genealogy Society website: www.swngs.org.

Don't forget us when researching; you don't have to be a member to do a search!