Western trail

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Harold Potthoff points out names of interest on a map from E.S. Sutton's "Southwest Nebraska" book to members and guests of the Great Western Cattle Trail Association at Northshore near Trenton Wednesday night. Southwest Nebraska has been crossed by many trails over the years, from Indian traders thousands of years ago, early mountain men, to John C. Fremont in 1843, to George Custer's cavalry in 1867 and early wagon trains. Drovers pushed cattle heards north to the railroad at Ogallala through the area until settlers forced the trails farther west and the cattle trail days eventually ended only a few decades after they begin. Potthoff said his property was the site of eight dugouts during early settlement days, and an Oberlin man in attendance said he owned land once owned by a man who survived being pierced by an arrow as a small child during the Last Indian Raid in Oberlin in 1878.

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