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Centennial History Book
Every community has cherished REMINISCENCES
MRS. LOUISE CROSSGROVE REVIEWS PIONEER DAYS
The Farnam Echo, 1936
Mr. Crossgrove, myself, little son, Merle and a nephew, John Crossgrove, now of St. Maries, Idaho, and my brother, W. D. Hunt, now of North East, Pennsylvania, started west from Westfield, New York, March 18, 1885.
It was cold there, the ice was three feet thick on Lake Erie. We arrived at Gothenburg, a small town then, the evening of the 20th. It was so warm we were delighted with the climate. We stayed in town until the next morning when Clayton Rolph (now deceased) met us with a team and wagon, and brought us to his father’s home about two miles north of Farnam where Wm. Murray now lives.
Mr. Crossgrove and my brother soon went to North Platte and filed on homesteads, joining, which were five and a half miles northwest of Farnam, in Lincoln County, now owned by E. F. Krepcik.
That first summer the men worked for a Mr. Thompson, who owned the place, where Mr. Brasch now lives, north of where the town of Keystone was started.
We lived in a one-room house there, then in a tent on our claim, while they were building our sod house. The walls were three feet thick and it made a fine place for houseplants on the window sills. The house was warm in winter and cool in the summer, and the fleas, bugs and snakes thought so too.
Then one beautiful day in November a little girl came to make her home with us. We named her Nora.
That winter Mr. Crossgrove still worked for Mr. Thompson and hauled meat to the railroad camps west of here, where they were putting in the railroad, which we were all very glad to have and soon the town of Farnam began to build up; business places, beautiful homes, churches and schools on the bare prairie, and fifty years has brought many more changes which we are enjoying now.
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