It was 1885. A newspaper was about to be born, and with it a frontier town!
The newspaper – The Nebraska Observer – cranked out its first issue May 1, 1885 on an old Army press. And it oozed optimism from the very beginning. The headline and “deck headlines:”
“ANTELOPEVILLE,
CENTRALLY LOCATED,
FUTURE PROSPECTS, A TOWN
OF 500 WITHIN ONE YEAR.”
The story read:
“Antelopeville, the future home of the ‘Observer,’ is finely located in Western Cheyenne County, Nebraska. A live western town is a marvel of growth, and all who know the history of Nebraska towns cannot but take a lively interest in the growth and prosperity of Antelopeville from this on.
“The present population of Antelopeville and vicinity is about 100 inhabitants, by far the largest share of this number is made up of a live, energetic class of people, coming from the east, as most of them do, they bring with them in a measure, the habits and customs of the settled east. Yet they soon imbibe the free-hearted hospitality, which is such a marked characteristic of the West.
•
“Seldom in a new town, do we find a class of people who are uniformly so intelligent and sociable as the class who have located here. Some of our most worthy citizens have made this their home for a number of years, holding responsible positions in the employ of the Railway company, or engaged in stock rising.”
Undoubtedly the first printed record describing Antelopeville was from the first issue of the Observer in 1885. Editor C.H. Randall, only 19, described what was there at the time.
We find that Theodore Menges had a general mercantile store; J.H. Coughlin managed the Railway eating house; Peter Roolman had brick kilns and yards; and S.F. Fleharty, realty.
The location for the town site was “one of the best in Nebraska,” the Observer boasted. “The ground is a gentle slope form the hill on the south to the railway. The first platting of town sites was done in the summer of 1884, and by 1885, 100 acres had been platted: 40 acres by J.T. Clarkson; 40 by Andrew Burg of Antelopeville, all on the south side of the tracks; and 20 on the north side platted by Bay State Live Stock Co. Lots in the Clarkson addition “have been selling rapidly,” the Observer said. By the summer of 1886, Yannayon had platted some more, and even offered free lots to anyone who would build upon them.
When the Observer first started, the editor of an exchange paper, the Osceola Record, wrote “We were in Antelopeville not more than eight months ago... and [were] unable then to discover any local institutions which would give a paper any support. We learn that Antelopeville had grown since then.”
In that formative year of 1885 the town had indeed grown by startling leaps. It had a good school (conducted 10 months) and also a large Union Sunday School that “can boast of one of the finest libraries in the state. This library was secured to the Sunday School through the efforts of G.W. Simpson, Boston, Mass., who is president of Bay State Live Stock Co.”
The huge cattle company had a home ranch located here. It was described as one of the largest stock companies in Nebraska, and its history is told in another story in this edition.
Kimball had another advantage. There was no town in what would be Banner County, so many stores in that area were established for the convenience of early settlers. That gave employment to the freighters, since supplies had to be freighted from Kimball or other communities along the railroad.
They used ox or horse teams and wagons and the trips would take two or more full days. The men slept in the livery stables, according to Mr. and Mrs. Mervyn Snyder in a 1940 interview in the Observer.
o
Early homesteaders would work at home until their meager crops were harvested, then leave for Cheyenne to get work to earn enough to tide them over for the winter. Winters were often severe, and food scarce, the Snyders said. And some families even ground corn in coffee mills for meal for corn bread.
Land agents in the first year were C. F. Robertson, S. F. Fleharty, and Mr. Root C.C. Clewett was a contractor and builder.
No doubt about it, Kimball was booming!
In August, 1885, a news story said “One year ago today there was not a business house in our town, now there is six (sic) business houses and two offices aside from a large hotel and residences.” Two grocery stores were numbered among them, and several stores were under construction. Schaefer Brothers Dry Goods had clothing, groceries, hardware, lumber and dry goods. Randall & Co. had general merchandise, and N.E. Gasmann had groceries and drugs, feed and flour.
Although there were a hotel, a lumber yard, one store and another about to open, unfortunately there were “not many lassies.” The young men were the poorer for it. Because in 1885 a man could get a tree claim if he were 21 or head of a household. So a man 20 1/2 could get a tree claim only if he married.
This was the New Eden, the editor of his day proclaimed. People were flocking here, and every train brought two to six land seekers, it was said.
Newspapers boosted their towns with fervor, and not all the boasts probably could be substantiated. Sometimes the editor took to poetry to entice immigrants.
“Westward man, if thither bound,
with view to share the bounty
of Uncle Sam, in western land,
then go to Cheyenne County’
You are welcome to our western land;
Our plain, our vale, our hill,
and buy your ticket, don’t forget,
to the town of Antelopeville.”
o
This was written in 1885, before Cheyenne County was broken up and before Antelopeville was renamed.
By June, 1885, C.A. Schooley, who had just opened the Hotel Martha the month before, began his two-story hotel (which would end up three stories). Peter Roolman manufactured kilns of “pure white lime and first class brick.” Fred and Lew Schaefer began excavation on a large store building on Front Street. L. E. (Lew) would go to St. Louis to buy stock for the Schaefer Brothers store. They were two of the town’s earliest merchants, and opened their store Aug. 10, 1885. They started in the mercantile and lumber business “when the country was only infested by cattle men and cow boys,” according to an article in the Observer Feb. 9, 1988.
The town was alive. Although an item in the Aug. 14, 1885 issue said a Dr. E.M. Williams of Admah, Neb., had decided to locate here, it was not to be. Later Dr. L.R. Markley would come to begin a general practice.
Clarkson and Burg donated land for the park and public square, it was said in July, 1885. Six weeks later, Editor Randall had grown impatient. He waxed poetic.
“It is in order now,
and we rise to remark,
(With a respectful bow)
What has become of our Park?”
There was confusion in Nebraska because of a post office in the east called Antelope. The residents here called the settlement Antelopeville while the railroad referred to its station as Antelope. It was decided to change the name to Kimball, and in November 1885 it was announced that the post office had agreed to the new name.
News of the change from Antelopeville to Kimball came in the Nov. 6, 1885 issue. The headline:
“KIMBALL!!! GOODBYE, ANTELOPEVILLE.”
“Such is the good news that comes form the Post Office Department at Washington. The name Antelopeville was thought by most of our citizens to be too large and ungainly to carry around on all occasions. Consequently, in response to their petition for a change to the dignified title of KIMBALL, the Post Office Department granted it, and the Railway and Express companies will doubtless make the change at once.
“After December first our town will be known as Kimball, until a short period of time hence when it is believed that we shall deserve the title of ‘City of Kimball.’”
The town might have been known as Kimball, but second thoughts arose the next summer. J.J. McIntosh, the county clerk, believed the only way the name of the town could be changed officially and for the record was by the petition method, with the district court ruling on it.
The Observer concluded that the post office and rail way station were known as Kimball but the town proper was probably still Antelopeville.
Later it was learned that since Antelopeville had not been incorporated, it could be changed by petition signed by a majority of the residents, submitted to the county commissioners. Some subsequent issues of the newspaper are missing and it isn’t known how the name change was resolved. Suffice it to surmise that Kimball is the official name of the community.
The town was named after Thomas Lord Kimball, later a general manager and vice president of Union Pacific Railroad. Several months before the name change, the Observer noted that Thomas L. Kimball “passed through here in his special car.” In 1886, according to Union Pacific payroll records, Kimball was general traffic manager stationed in Omaha. In September, 1887, he was named assistant to the vice president. Six months later he was named acting general manager, and in November 1888 was named general manager.
He later became a third vice president, then was also listed as president of the Omaha Union Depot.
According to Mrs. E.A. Holyoke, a granddaughter of Kimball, he went to Omaha in 1869 and worked as a passenger agent for the railroad, but UP payroll records don’t confirm this.
The land rush was on!
