Our neighboring counties to the north

This time of year always reminds me of Grandma's houses in Dalton. The country home which holds my earliest memories and the town home which reminds me that a bunch of pre-teens in a little house can think of a lot of things to get them in trouble! It was that way at Grandmas because there were actually two sets of cousins; the first group, which my sister belonged to and were nearly a generation older than the second group, which my brother and I belonged to. By the time those of us in the second group were pre-teens; the first group had married and was showing up at Dalton with their children for holidays! There was a lot of jumping off the top of the refrigerator into an adult's arms and running through grandma's shoes as we played hide and seek in the connecting closets.

One thing that brought us all to a halt was when the lemons hauled by my cousins from California came out of the suitcase and the peppermint sticks from the drugstore downtown came out of the brown bag. One of the adults would carefully cut a hole in the top side of the lemon, stick the peppermint stick carefully into it and hand each one of us the wonderful treat, the purpose of which was to suck the lemon juice up through the peppermint stick thereby creating a sweet sticky straw-full of lemony delight! You couldn't do that today with peppermint sticks because they are no longer the large porous sticks of 60 years ago but that is a flavor I will never forget!

North Platte's newspaper was called the Lincoln County Tribune in its' early years and many of the smaller newspapers stories were captured by them. McCook made the news at times as well as Stockville, Curtis, Sidney and the like. Always remember to check surrounding counties for news of your ancestors since many of the early publications were destroyed. Here are a couple of examples of what you can find.

This piece of editorial comment came from reading the Chadron Democrat covering a 4th of July celebration at Chadron: "At the 4th of July celebration at Chadron there was about 1,200 Indians under Red Cloud present. The Democrat of that city prints the speech made by the Chief there, and from the first to the last word we find this production one continual whine about how the government has treated his people. It is one continual complaint about something they have been promised and have not received. This speech will probably be reproduced for Eastern readers and they will call the rot eloquence and the effusions of patriotism." (Lincoln County Tribune, July 23, 1887) (Chief Red Cloud is best known for leading the battle against the army due to the Bozeman Trail which crossed territory given to several tribes over the years but, which gave settlers and gold rush followers a more direct route to the west.)

From the Stockville Faber: "A 12 year old son of A. Jackson near Moorefield was burned to death in a prairie fire, last Sunday. The sad news was communicated to the boy's 10 year old sister, who had been sick, and the stroke resulted in her death. The fire originated at the house of Fred Wilkins who was away at the time, visiting some neighbors. A well-known character is supposed to have started the fire out of malice. His identity will probably become public ere long. Everything in Wilkin's house was burnt up, except a vest that contained a draft for $ 180 which was snatched from the flames.

The little boy who lost his life was trying to save a horse which was lariated in a canyon. The mad flames were too quick for him and the little hero perished." Reprinted in the Lincoln County Tribune, May 5, 1888.

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