Getting Settled

Porter Store Is Established

From 1882 through the winter of 1884 few things changed much in Dundy County. For the most part the "oldtimers" who had been around for five to ten years saw the newcomers as welcome additions to the country. True, when James Porter unloaded his knocked-down frame house and started rebuilding it near the Three Bar Ranch, old Jake Haigler was heard to complain about "the country getting too crowded" but most of what Haigler said was in jest. Everyone who knew him said Haigler was one of the best neighbors anyone could have, with his door always open to everyone, even sodbusters.

Haigler might not have been quite so neighborly if he had known the newcomers nailing together numbered boards would, in a few short years, be responsible for starting a town which would bring hundreds of people to the nearby rangeland.

Porter talked about going into the cattle business himself, but his true calling was retail merchandising and politics. He started with selling, putting politics on the back burner of his mind for a few years. As soon as their home was finished Porter and his wife, Arabelle, decided to open a store. Customers were so few and far between that those who came from any distance were invited to stay overnight with the Porters. Inviting customers to spend the night was not just a business gesture. Arabelle Porter was so lonely on the new frontier that she looked forward to customers as people to visit with first, store customers second.

Jake Haigler Retires As Postmaster

When the new Porter Store opened, it did provide for a post office location in the western part of the county. The original post office of Arakan had been closed when Jake Haigler gave up his postmaster job. Some people say Haigler quit simply because he was too busy with ranch chores to be tied up. There is another story, however, which is much more colorful, and more than likely true even though it can't be verified.

According to the story an eastern dude, probably someone associated with the new railroad, stopped by the Arakan Post Office one day to mail a registered letter. Jake promptly and efficiently fixed the man up, but then the dude made the mistake of asking for a receipt. Jake was one of those oldtimers who believed a man's word was all the legal bond needed in any transaction, and he told the patron how he felt. When the man insisted on a receipt, Haigler blew up and told the customer, "I've never given or asked for a receipt from anyone in my life and I refuse to do business with anyone dishonest enough to ask for one."
Haigler was so enraged by the incident he packaged the post office supplies and, as his last official postmaster function, mailed the package to the Post Office Department. When, in due course, a postal inspector wrote that a postmaster could not resign that way, Jake replied with a short, and very impolite, note stating he could and he did.

In the fall of 1882, on October 5, a new post office was installed in the Porter Store with Arabelle Porter as postmistress. The railroad cattle pens nearby had been named by the Burlington in honor of the largest rancher in the area and the post office name of Arakan was dropped when the new post office was opened. When Mrs. Porter began her duties, the post office was named Haigler.

Post Offices Change Names

The Burlington had a custom of naming depots after large cattle shippers, even when an established town had a different name. Usually the town followed the lead of the railroad and underwent a name change to agree with the railroad's choice. Such was the case at Collinsville. Over a two-year period the town had been called Saint Elmer, then Elmer, and then Collinsville. On June 14, 1883, there was one more name change. Following the lead of the Burlington, the people of Collinsville received approval from the Post Office Department to call their town Benkelman.

Just before Christmas in 1882, on December 19th, a fourth post office came into being along the Burlington line. It was called Ives, although the Burlington had given the name of Parks to the depot. Unlike Benkelman and Haigler, Ives resisted changing the name of the town to conform with the railroad name. It was not until April 9, 1904, that Ives' residents finally gave in and accepted the official name of Parks from the Post Office Department.
In 1882 several trademarks of civilization began to be seen in Dundy County. Among the more important events was the first school, set up in a sod house owned by Mose Collins. The term lasted for ten weeks under the tutorship of a teacher named Alice Harrison, who instructed seven students that year.

By the time school started there were even a few new businesses in Collinsville. The town now boasted of a drug store, two general merchandise stores and a blacksmith shop. The second child to be born in the county, and the first to survive past infancy, came into the world on March 20th. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T. C. Kimsey and was given the name of Nellie.

There was even a Sunday School started in Collinsville, a sure sign the country was changing. In addition to religious fulfillment the Sunday School provided a chance to gather on a social basis. It was not, however, the only kind of get-together enjoyed by the few people living in the county.

There were occasional dances, Fourth of July celebrations and on Christmas in 1882 a group of cowboys played Santa Claus for the children. Anyone who could play a musical instrument was popular at any gathering, and a special favorite was a cowboy who pushed a melodeon around in a wheelbarrow, playing at dances and church singings alike.
By 1883 Benkelman had progressed to the point a new frame schoolhouse was built to replace the little sod hut which had served the year before. And that same year people began to talk about making Dundy County an official and separate county instead of a precinct of Hitchcock County.

Back in 1873, on February 27th, the Nebraska Legislature had approved the boundaries of an area 42 miles long and 24 miles wide as a new county. Named after U. S. Circuit Court Judge Elmer S. Dundy, the 925 square miles set aside was bordered on the south by the State of Kansas and on the west by Colorado. Although it existed as a geographical unit, for the next 11 years, Dundy County would have no political existence. There were too few people in the county to establish an official government so the area was administered at the county level as a precinct of Hitchcock County with the county seat in Trenton.

Benkelman Becomes County Seat

In 1883 people in Benkelman began to push for a county government of their own and on May 18, 1884, they formed it. There were still not enough permanent residents in this area to make the county legal, but that slight problem was overcome by importing a few "temporary residents" from McCook, Nebraska, to swell the population up to the required level. Benkelman, being the only town in the county, became the county seat by default, a move the organizers failed to make official. That oversight would lead to some serious problems for the county in the late 1880's.

As 1884 drew to a close, Dundy had become an official county with four post offices and one village which consisted of four stores, a livery barn, a school house, a hotel, a blacksmith shop and the Burlington depot. At Haigler, the Porter Store was still serving an occasional customer. A few farmers were trying to raise vegetables and a little bit of mixed livestock along the river. Southwest Nebraska was still very much cattle country, however, as evidenced by the 12,000 head of cattle shipped from pens at Benkelman in the fall with several thousand more going out from other stops along the rail line.

The great round-up of 1884 was to be the last in Dundy County history. Some ranchers would try to hang on in the face of the flood of land-seekers about to roll across the prairie, but the handwriting was on the wall. A few ranchers, like Jake Haigler, gave up early and moved on when the '84 round-up was completed. The others were forced out by the end of 1885. A new era was about to begin in Dundy County and as usual the force behind it was the railroad.

Railroad Helps Populate Dundy County

The railroad had looked at the route along the Republican and decided that hauling thousands of cattle to market was not enough business, profitable though it was. The big problem with cattle transporting, from the railroad point of view, was that it was seasonable, and it required pulling empty cattle cars westward.

To overcome these two drawbacks the railroad needed other people shipping other goods and ideally it would be two-way traffic. What the western Great Plains needed, the railroad decided, was a few farmers. In an effort to stimulate settlement the railroad came up with a well-planned campaign designed to promote interest in the open plains. As part of the package, the railroad offered special reduced rates for anyone going west to file a homestead claim. A homesteader could hire an entire cattle car at the special rate and take livestock and farming equipment as well as his family to the west. Under this plan the Burlington could fill a few of those empty cattle cars and, at the same time, get some people in the Great Plains who might soon start sending grain and vegetables back east.

Instead of spending months behind plodding oxen, carrying only what could be loaded on a wagon, the homesteader of the 1880's could take his equipment and family to western lands in style. Posters were put up in eastern depots and other places. Advertisements were placed and news items were fed to eastern newspapers, all telling about the paradise to be found on the wide open Great Plains.
Beginning in the early spring months of 1885, people from the East took advantage of the offer in numbers no one could have anticipated. The great homestead boom was on and thousands who joined it did so by boarding westbound trains with tickets indicating their final destination was Dundy County, Nebraska. Within five years they would change the face of the prairie forever.

Continued in IV. Beginning Boom Days