Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 1934)
The Frontier D. H. Cronin, Editor and Proprietor Entered at the Postoffice at O'Neill, Nebraska as Second Class Matter. ADVERTISING RATES: Display advertisments on Pages 4, 5 and 8 are charged for on a basis of 25 cents an inch (one column wide) per week; on Page 1 the charge is 40 cents an inch per week. Local advertisements, 10 cents per line first insertion, sub sequent insertions 6 cents per line. SUBSCRIPTION RATES One Year, in Nebraska-$2.00 One Year, outside Nebraska-$2.60 Every subscription is regarded as an open account. The names of sub scribers will be instantly removed from our mailing list at expiration of time paid for, if publisher shall be notified; otherwise the subscription remains in force at the designated subscription price. Every subscriber must understand that these conditions are made a part of the contract be tween publisher and subscriber. THE OBSERVER Omaha, Nebr., January 2, 1934. This year’s primaries are yet a long way off, but that does not interfere with the pleasure the Lincoln and Omaha political dopsters are having arranging slates for the populace and the press bureaus of the several fact ions seem to be devoting most of their time to selections for the republicans just now. There is u good deal of boosting for Ted Metcalfe for govern or going on in Omaha and for James Kodman for the United States Senator ial nomination. Also, the Omaha Journal, a weekly published by Ballard Dunn and which is left free at each Omaha door, has discovered u strong demand that Mr. Dunn be nominated. He was editor-in-chief of the Omaha Bee-News under Nels Updike and be fore that a New York and Chicago propaganda writer, and now uevoies space in his paper to opposing a Far nam street free bridge, a trial of five cent street car fare in Omaha and the public ownership and operation of power nnd electric plants. A very for midable Omaha candidate who may run for either Senator or governor, is Robert Smith, the present republican state chairman, clerk of the local dis trict court and the political boss of Omaha. Ted Metcalfe is campaigning on a wet platform although prohib ition no longer makes any difference here, nnd will probably be the wet candidate against Dwight Griswold of Gordon if the voters succumb to the efforts to introduce the wet and dry issue in the campaign instead of leav ing it a non-partisan issue to be voted upon ni the fall. Former Senator Wherry of Pawnee probably will not be a candidate for governor again this year, according the dope from Lincoln. Speaking of wet and dry, there was a lot of bootleg, ull dolled up in bottled in bond and foreign labels, in evidence New Year’s eve, nnd suckers paid from five to eight dollars a quart for it under the impression it was of legal manufacture, but as a matter of fact the only legal booze was that in a few bottles brought back by persons who recently had visited states in which repeal is now in force. L.C.P. ENTER 1934—ON ROLLER SKATES Having hooted out minnture golf and Eugenie hats, the country has been ripe for a new fad. The palm of popular acclaim is placed on the sport of roller skating. In small and huge cities, from coast to coast, adult men and women as well ns boys and girls of all sizes have been rolling about at a great rate on eight little wheels. Parks, playgrounds and sidewalks have swarmed with enthusiasts. Op erators of commercial rinks report a bonanza crop, and such games as "snap the whip,” imported from the ice ponds, are returning to popularity. Fashion magazines have even seen fit to create modish costumes for the fair female skaters. Skaters have spilled over into the streets, choosing the well paved ar terial highways which seem as well udapted to the soprt as the arenas. This has led to trouble, und accidents have increased seriously. The sport has not only become a new peril to pedestrians, but is a constantly in creasing hazard to motorists. According to a survey of the sit uation made by the National Bureau of Casualty and Surety Underwriters, accidents due to roller skating are from two to five times more frequent now than a year ago. In New York City the mishaps are nearly double; in St. Louis there have been 5 times as many; Baltimore reports a 233 per cent increase; Detroit recorded 122 accidents in u few months. Fatal ities have occurred in nearly every one of the cities surveyed. Although they were caught unpre pared by the rapid spread of the craze, many cities are attempting to cope with the problems by forbidding skaters to use main streets and thru fares. Some are barricading infre quently used streets in residential dis tricts and creating "play streets” for skaters. These are being supervised by the police or by squuds of unem ployed men. Curfew hours are rigid ly enforced. Adaptahle sections of parks and playgrounds are also in use as rinks. School authorities co operating by discouraging chiklrer from skating to and from school. Winter will doubtless put n crimp in the sport for the next few months but since roller skating is an excel lent and economical exercise, it ma> in the spring become even more pop ular. Authorities should be on gunrd Excavation Shows Holt County Was Once The Home of Many Indians (Continued from last week.) By J. B. O’Sullivan On the James McDermott farm, one mile south of here, thousands of arti facts have been found. Many are of the same culture as those found on the Michael Gallagher and other farms. In finding these, it is noted at times hundreds of these resemble Pawnee workmanship, while it is seen there may be 600 'years difference between the making of two given pieces. The Pawnee is the only nation of Indians not known to have immigrated from somewhere to where the whites found them. They had been here so long they had no traditional version of hav ing moved. They told the whites they were placed here by God nnd by God’s decree they were the classiest things in all creation. The Pawnee und the Mound Builder may mean the same thing. Interesting artifacts found here in clude toys, one a kind’s knife of bone, arrowheads the size of a match-head, a stone with hieroglyphics, including the head of an Indian incised, several thousand arrow heads, spearheads, thousands of end-scrapers, knives, for household and skinning including belt and four-bladed, the latter being diamond shaped; comon stone beads with holes in them, large hammer heads, surgeon’s knives, spades, one hoe-head, picks, tree-wedges, blanks for making arrowheads. These blanks were used as money all over the country. An arrowhead flaker of the front leg hone of a deer, three large hone tinkers, figured pottery, pieces of ocher nnd axes and tomahawks and thousands of broken pieces are nlso found here. A very lew pieces oi looacco pipes were found. Seldom are more than six spearheads found at any village site anywhere. It is estimated, that several thousand ancients lived almost on the present site of O’Neill at one time. Arrow heads have been dug out six feet be low the ground surface. Burials have been found at several points within u mile or so of town, on the Elkhorn Broken extinct turtle shell one inch thick, stones of walnut size which were placed in fire until they cracked, holding the smoke stains today, arrow heads, or other stone things always having a chunk broken out to liberate evil spirits, and knuckle-like hones indicate human burials. Some of these are along caving river banks. There is some indication dwellers here fired the residence of the dead, then heaped earth over it. It is easily possible mnny different people lived here at different times. A site fit for a village would he attractive to all who beheld it. There is no doubt in the minds of authorities that the great Pawnee na tion at one time extended almost to North Dakota. It is not all certain that Coronado did not come this wny in his mad quest of the Seven Cities of Cibola in the Land of Quivera, with its glittering gold and sparkling silver and crumpled dreams at the end of its main streets. There are today enough works of ancients and later dwellers to indicate that at one time more people lived in Holt county than in any other section ot iNcoiaska. Out on the old Kimborough reanch, now' occupied by the William Grutsch family, are half a dozen mounds which appear, according to others like them in Wisconsin, to be sleeping places of kings of savages. Some flat and shapeless as if levelled, by time, while others are fresh enough appearing to have been made 500 years ago. One is on the side of a hill, and the place from whence came the earth to build it is clearly seen today. This mound is about .‘10 feet long, about eight high and 12 wide, It is marvelously shaped and built of tough gumbo which defied, entrance with a shovel. There is no doubt but what there are hundreds of such mounds along Eagle anil other creeks. They may be found by wutchiug for pieces of petrified bones and chunks of imported rock such as agate, quartzite, chalcedony, jasper and chert. None have beer explored. Besides the efligy mounds found elswhere, there are “tells" oi “magulae" mounds, built for marks ot time, events or some unknown pur pose. Hundreds of pieces of petrified bone were found at these mounds. John Grutsch, Jr., sank a hole in a targe one And found one foot of select ed native stones, two feet of (in* sand, two inches of ashes, more sand and more ashes, The layers cor respond to mounds in Michigan. A burial wns made there, then for foui days a fire was kept burning over it another burial, more earth and mort Are. Finally the thing was sealed with the foot of rocks. The big one at Grutsch’*, though, was in process ol extension at one end when the build ers left never to return. Henry Tom linson inspected these mouds and he pronounced them wonderful and worth further investigation. Only a short age of funds has kept authorities from inspecting the earth works of north ern Holt county. In time they are sure to be attractive to archaelolgists everywhere. On the Edwin Alder farm land on Apple creek, northeast Holt county, is the most extensive work of earth and rock yet revealed here. The thing is so largo one cannot comprehend that it is man-made. Shooting out from hills, running northeast, is a slightly curved grade of earth, perhaps one-fourth mile long, and at the far end is a hill covering about one city block. When the Alders came there, the grade was 40 feet high. It is cattle-worn some. This grade must be 150 feet wide at the bottom. Bloomfield quartzite silverish rock found in Boyd and Keya Paha counties, is cracked up in chunks and scattered thru the works entirely to its top. A few pieces of very crude ly worked stone were found there and a number of animal bone knobs, some so large they must have belonged to extinct animals. The work looks like a fort. It mny hnve been n ceremonial place, perhaps n highway of the dead, maybe an altar of Druidirals who crimsoned the earth on yonder hill with blood of some beauty of an enemy tribe. There is such n work, on a smaller scale, on the Grutseh ranch but trees and brush prevented close inspection and nature may have thrown it up. The one on Alder’s possibly could have been earth and rock and bone scraped together by a glacier. One is known to have melted away with its south edge near a line running from Spencer to Norfolk. But to an nmatuer it looks like the work of man. It roughly was figured the grade alone contained 120,000 square yards of materials. Holt county contains so many and varied relics of those who lived per haps thousands of years ago, and skeletal evidence of extinct species of animals, that one investigating is astonished at every new find. Twice recently William Grutseh un earthed tine skulls and horns, some petrified, of a bison which flourished long before the kind here when Colum bus landed. When he came, about 400 years ago, it was estimated, there were around. 75,000,000 bison in the United States. Perhaps a million years before, another kind of bison is believed to have numbered close to 100,000,000. i no spread oi me norms oi me present American bison, mostly in parks now, is about like that of the average steer. Those Grutach recov ered have a tip-to-tip spread of close to four feet. At the base af the horns one measures 14 inches in cir cumference. The animals must have been like elephants. We used to believe there were no humans here that far back but there is plenty of evidence to show there has been, at different times, back to 50,000 years ago, a great many more people here than the measley 300,000 i Indians in America when Columbus first trod the soil. On Plum creek, north of Ainsworth, is one of the most fertile fields of pre historic and extinct animals in the world. Two university students liv ing at Ainsworth have shipped to leading University museums thousands of pounds of bones from this deposit and have paid their way thru schools and undoubtedly have added to bank accounts besides. This is mentioned to show that while most of us do not realize Holt county is rich in relic materials it should be, lying so close to the Niobrara river and to the Plum creek north of Ainsworth. A few years ago, on the G. W. Wodsworth ranch, 12 miles northeast of Page, a very fine elephant tusk was broken while prying it from a draw where rains had revealed the death of a mammoth, perhaps several millions of years ago. This tusk is in remarkably good condition. Henry “Big Hank” Tomlinson has this speci man and it is worth your time to take a look at it. The ivory is dulled with age but one can see it is grown in one-half inch layers and could have belonged to nothing but the “animal having a tail at both ends.” There must be hundreds of elephant remains in Holt county. (Continued next week.) CAN YOU TELL A MORE PLAUSIBLE STORY THAN THIS? Following is a story which would be difficult to match in yarns about the fireplace. It has been gleaned from our exhange files. Readers may feel that this story should be under, Know Any Bigger? But J. H. Pechstein of Keokuk, la., says it’s the truth, so here goes: Duck season opened in Iowa on Oct. I at 12 o’clock noon. I have always enjoyed hunting so I got out my shot gun and hied toward a pond in the middle of a wood where I always have been able to get a few ducks. On account of the depression I bought shells with black powder. I also had half a dozen stogies in my pocket. When I neared the pond I loaded the gun and proceeded cautiously and spied what I thought to be 12 ducks swimming lazily around. 1 put the gun to my shoulder, took careful aim and fired both barrels. When the smoke cleared away the surface of the pond was void of ducks. 1 couldn’t understand how I had not even crippled one of them, and stood on the bank reloading my gun when 1 noticed one head after another appear on the surface of the water. Then 1 realized 1 had taken a couple of shots at some “hell divers.” 1 shot twice more with the same result, reloaded the gun and waited until the head appeared on the sur face and fired again with the same result. 1 kept on shooting as the heads appeared, but never a dead duck, Just as my shells gave out 1 realized that as soon as the smoke ap peared at the end of the barrel the ducks dove and were under the water before the shot reached the place where they had been. So I lit one of the cigars 1 had in my pocket and as soon as the heads appeared above the [surface 1 let out a big pulF of smoke, 1 kept this up and by the time I had smoked my last cigar every one of the 12 ducks lay dead on the surface of the pond. 1 had kept them diving so fast they did not have time to breathe and consequently they stangled to death. Then I got a pole from the woods and pulled all of them to shore and later had a good feast and did not have the worry of biting down on shot. GREETINGS TO 1934! The United States has come to the end of one of the most momentous years in its history. It has been a year in which governmental problems and issues have, to a greater degree than at any time since the World War, en gaged the attention and interest of the public. It has been a year of trial and error, of achievement and failure. And fiinally, it has been a year of astonishing change. For the first time since government was founded, there has been sweeping legislation to control the wages and hours of the entire working popula tion, and the competitive methods of virtually all industry. A dramatic and frankly experimental effort to solve the farmers’ problems has be come part of the law of the land. The largest public works program we have ever known has been inaugurated. Everything that the present lenders of government believed would, spur recovery, has been done. Advisors who had no previous connection with pol itics have been called in—and their plans have been adopted. The whole prestige of government, and the im mense power of the public treasury, have been used whole-heartedly and sometimes ruthlessly to bring us sta bility and. prosperity. To say that these efforts have been entirely successful is to close our eyes to facts. To say that they have failed is to be unjust. They have failed be .. . __H'-ILTL"" k PRICE REDUCED ! Per Gallon EFFECTIVE NOW CONOCO BRONZE AND OTHER CONOCO GASOLINE PASSING ON TO YOU THE ENTIRE »/tc REDUCTION IN FEDERAL GASOLINE TAX CONTINENTAL OIL COMPANY ... II M. ..I .... I. ■■■■■"■.. '■ '■ - — tween these extremes. Men have been put to work by the hundreds of thous ands—men who had had little or no work for two or three years, and had been forced to suffer the ignomity of organized charity in order to keep their families and themselves from utter privation. Wages have been appreciably raised and the sweat-shop, encouraged by the depression, has been eliminated. Child labor is on the wane. The CCC camps, whatever their shortcomings, have served to provide thousands of young men with useful work under army pay and discipline, and have kept them away from de bilitating and demoralizing influences. And in other fields the Administra tion has much on which it can honest ly pride itself. It has started a pro gram whereby the transportation dif ficulties of the country may eventually be solved. It has done a good job in solidifying and safeguarding the bank ing structure. It has attempted to protect the public against stock swindlers and fly-by-night promoters who reaped so fine a harvest in the boom years and even after. It has created machinery seeking to encour age home financing and private con struction. This is all on the credit side of the ledger. The entries on the debit side are not less important—and it does the country and the administration no service to overlook them. All great experimental movements breed errors —and Mr. Roosevelt and his advisors would have been a great deal more than human had they avoided them. It is unquestionably true that, in work ing to bring recovery, methods have been adopted, and laws passed, which will make arid some of the springs from whence recovery must eventu ally flow. The case of utilities is one in point. They are great employers and taxpayers. They are, by and large, one of the most progressive in fluences in the average community. Yet the industry as a whole (owned by millions of investors) is being politi cally castigated because of the sins of the few—a policy which can profit no one. Again, in the securities act, certain provisions have made it impossible to issue legitimate industrial securit ies—thus depriving business of capital it sorely needs, depriving workers of potential jobs, and depriving the pub lic of a place to put its money where it can do essential work. The law was designed to banish the seller of the wide blue sky—and it seems to have banished the seller of honest shares and bonds as well. In brief, government, and the voting public, must not forget that private initiative and enterprise are still the most important of national attributes. Government can do much to cure de pression but after recovery has com menced, it is industry and capital which will provide jobs, taxes, pay rolls, progress. The public purse is not bottomless. It can be more easily exhausted than we know. The admin istration should certainly not he blamed for honest mistakes—unless it makes no effort to correct them. And now is the time for that. In summing up, the American peo ple have the best of reasons for look ing to the future with confidence The country is still here. The land is no less fertile than it was. Its indus tries are no less great. Its individual spirit is no less potent. Its intellect ual capacity is no smaller. Factories, utilities, railroads, insurance compan ies, mines, banks, farms—they are all still here, and they will be doing busi ness as usual when new forces, new changes, of which we know nothing now, have usurped the center of the stage. So—greetings to 1934! Nebraska News Items Ten additional airports have been recommended for the following Ne braska tow’ns and the technical ad visor of these projects, Dr. W. W. Arrasmith, of Grand. Island, has ap proved the 10 recommendations and forwarded them to Governor Bryan, who in turn gave them to the CWA committee. The port projects include: Burwell, $5,256; Chappel, $4,900; Crawford, $5,500; Gordon, $8,600; Merriman, $4,965; O’Neill, $7,500; Ogallala, $7,690; Ord, $6,950; Schuy ler, $6,200, and Valentine, $7,830. At Norfolk a new mercantile loan corporation is to have headuarters and the corporation is to be known as the Mercantile Loan corpration, capital ized at $100,000, dealing in real estate and securities. The officers are D. D. Mapes, James P. Marron, R. T. Flo tree, B. E. Adkins, John Robinson, J. A. Rosenberg and J. W. Spirk. Two brothers of Alexander Legge, who was head of the farm board, liv ing in Colfax county, will receive $75,000 each of an estate evaluated at $1,035,000. Three nieces and three nephews also may share the estate. Mrs. Oliver M. Coffin, sister to the de ceased wife, is to receive $20,000. Mr. Legge also had been head of the Inter national Harvester company. The Ohio Oil company obtained lease to 200,000 acres of land in Ban ner county and has a test well going down on the F. F. Stauffer ranch. This company is the principal pros pecting outfit in the Buckingham dis trict of Colorado. Near Signal Buttes, 16 miles southwest of Gering, the Scottsblutf Oil Drilling company is showing much drilling activity. It holds leases on several thousand, acres. One test well there is a 20-inch hole, in width, not depth. At Johnstown a few days ago, the valuable police dog owned by Mr. and Mrs. G. It. Slocum, which disappeared immediately following the automobile wreck of the Slocum car, about three .weeks ago, between Ainsworth and Johnstown, was found, wandering the streets of Johnstown and was captured by Ole Olson and Aaron Snyder. A reward had been offered for the cap ture of the dog. The animal was very hard to catch as he apparently was still suffering from fright caused by the overturning of the Slocum auto. Mr. Slocum was so injured he died, in the Ainsworth hospital a week after the smashup. Mrs. Slocum was in jured but is almost recovered. An automobile made in 1902 wa3 driven to Tecumseh a few days ago and caused much interest. The ma chine was equipped with a single seat for the driver and it is on the right side. It is belt-driven, has solid rub ber tires, looks like a made-over buggy and is cranked on one side. The wheels are like those of a buggy and are buggy-size. It still is in working order but the speed it attains caused those of this generation to do a lot of laughing up their sleeves. Wheat fields in Boone county are badly in need of moisture a report made there revealed. The wheat still is in good condition but subsoil mois ture has shrunk and rain or snow is needed. s < OF ALL kinds of hunger there is none like money hunger. Physical starvation may he the* result of finan cial improvidence. THE O’NEILL NATIONAL BANK Capital, Surplus and Undivided Profits, $125,000.00 This bank carries no indebted ness of officers or stockholders.