Cattle-ranching in Lincoln County, Nebraska

During the 1870s it appeared that Lincoln County and much of western Nebraska would primarily be a stock region.  Farming failed to gain a foothold during the 1870s, and cattle ranchers dominated most of the arable land between the rivers.  The origins of the cattle industry can be traced to the early 1870s when cattlemen from Texas began to drive their herds to Nebraska railroad towns.  Kearney became one of the first Nebraska cattle towns in 1872, but the trailhead moved west to Ogallala after just two seasons.  Cattlemen largely avoided North Platte as a destination because its location between the North and South Platte rivers made it difficult to reach.  During the cattle-drive period of the 1870s, Lincoln County received only limited herds from Texas, and this probably had a positive effect on the social fabric of the community.  North Platte, for example, did not experience anywhere near the level of crime and lethal violence associated with the cattle drives as did the neighboring communities of Kearney and Ogallala.  In what has become known as the "Kearney War," Kearney's citizens battled Texas cowboys in 1875, resulting in the deaths of several citizens and cowboys.  At least five men were killed in gunfights during Ogallala's cattle-town period.

During the 1870s the primary stock region in the county remained the rich grasslands between the Platte rivers, an area that contained over seventy-five hundred head.  Morrel Keith and Guy Barton, two of the most prominent Nebraska cattlemen, operated several ranches in the county.  They owned five thousand head of cattle on their ranches north of the North Platte River, and six other ranchers owned herds of more than a thousand head each. 

The cattle industry went through a crisis during the 1880s when cattle herds were decimated by winter storms and farmers claimed and fenced in much of the open rangelands in the county.  For example, when farmers began settling on the public domain between the Platte rivers in the 1880s, ranchers pushed their herds out of the valley land, across the North Platte, and eventually into the Sandhills where open range still existed.  Many cattlemen lost everything during the 1880s, and those ranchers who stayed in Lincoln County were forced to diversify their operations by limiting the size of their herds and fencing in their land.  By 1890, then, the open-range cattle industry ended, and the largest herds in Lincoln County fell from five thousand to around five hundred cattle.