The excerpts listed here have been taken from the book 'Ingham' that
 was compiled, written and published  by Kenneth L. Stevens in 1981.
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Mr. Stevens lived on East Deer Creek in Lincoln County from 1934 until 1994.  He was 
 a rancher and a rural mail carrier. His writings come from his own personal experience
 of living in the canyon and from contacts with the people that lived there, also. The life
 on the frontier was rugged as was the land  The people that stayed and those that 
 moved away have stories to share. Some died from the stress of failure while others 
 made a good living. Some married the girl or boy from just over the hill, others brought
 their bride, or their families to homestead this new land on the frontier of Nebraska.
         
     
      
   





   

      

         
Introduction
         to Ingham
      
      

         
Ingham....1880-1900
      
      

         
Ingham.....1980-2000
      
   
   

      

         
Ingham....1900-1920
      
      

         
Ingham.... 1920-1952
      
      

         
Changes seen by M.
         Craig
      
   
   

      

         
Former residents
         write
      
      

         
The Ingham Calendar
      
      

         
Index of Ingham
         People
      
   
   

      

         
Pictures of Interest
      
      

         
Own an Ingham Book
      
      

         
1894 Diary of the
         Canyon
      
   





constructed by
h. elizabeth hoppe-stevens

behopste@yahoo.com

The first white people to come to the Ingham area planning to make it their home were people intending to raise livestock. They intended to become small ranchers. The grass in the area had been utilized some previously by larger operations. John Bratt and his associates had been running cattle in the area for some years but their improvements were farther west, on the head of Fox Creek. Their cattle had run free. They had built no fences, dug no wells, and built no shelter for man nor beast in the area that was to become the Ingham community. There had been soldiers and buffalo hunters here before the cattlemen and before that the Pawnee Indians claimed these canyons as part of their hunting grounds. The Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux may have all been in the area as war parties but the teepee rings around the water holes were likely made by Pawnee teepees. The arrowheads, beads, and flint scrapers were lost by Pawnees when they were in the area for a few weeks at a time on hunting trips.

These people were gone and it was an uninhabited area when Thomas Thompson and his family came up East Deer Canyon in the (spring/fall) of 1879. They had filed homestead papers on 160 acres in Section 18, Township 9 North, and Range 26 West. It was a L shaped tract that surrounded a rain water lake of perhaps ten or fifteen acres. The lake was deep enough that it seldom if ever went dry. It was a reliable source of water for livestock, not as good as a running stream but the grass on the hills and in the canyons must have made it an attractive spot to start a ranch.

There was a grove of elm trees on the east side of the lake. The first night on their land the Thompsons' parked their covered wagon under the largest tree in the group. The big elm tree was to become a landmark. It was of exceptional size then, and it was to live on another seventy-five years. During those seventy-five years, the Ingham Community was to come into being and then wither away until in 1980, the stub of the big tree looks out on a canyon with but little more human population than was there in 1880. We are going to try to tell the story of the people who came and went in that 100 years. We will try to tell what they did to the land and what the land did to them.

Even if the land was uninhabited, it had not escaped government notice. It had been surveyed into 36 section townships. It was part of Lincoln County and the odd numbered sections belonged to the Union Pacific Company. Sections 16 and 36 had been given to the State of Nebraska to help support a public school system. That left 16 sections in each township that could be claimed by eligible citizens for homesteads. The railroad land could be bought or rented or in some instances just used. The school land could be rented or perhaps just used if no one had leased it. Land was available. It was almost free for the taking but the taking wasn't easy.

What kind of land was it around the big tree. "Loess hills and plains" is what the soil scientists call it now. Loess in our Funk and Wagnalls is a 'pale yellowish silt or clay usually wind borne deposits'. Professor Condra of the University of Nebraska told the LaRue family that the silica was blown here from erupting volcanoes in the Rocky Mountain region. The silica is covered by 40-50 feet of loess. Professor Condra, also, told the LaRues that the silica had been covered by an inland sea before the loess was blown in on top of it. A country boy can draw a couple of conclusions from these statements. 1) The hills do change, it just takes a long time, and 2) it must have been one heck of a dust storm. You can also conclude that before 1880 the wind had gone down some and that they had had a little rain. Grass had been growing on the hills long enough that a top soil had been formed.

Ingham was located in the southwestern corner of Lincoln County, Nebraska.