The first Etna post office (1885-1895) was located three miles to the northwest. A new post office operated 1.5 miles east until 1921. In 1907 Etna saw the opening of a school, store, and telephone exchange. The store was enlarged by Andrew Ostergard in 1912 and later provided unofficial mail service until it closed in the early 1930s. The telephone exchange closed in 1933, the school in 1966. Automobiles and declining population reduced the need for services that such remote localities provided.
]]>Westerville, nestled in picturesque Clear Creek Valley, was the first town in Custer County. It was named for James H. Westervelt on whose land the townsite was platted August 11, 1880. The town became an important early trade center after pioneer families, both black and white, homesteaded here during the 1870's.
Westerville had many firsts in Custer County - the first frame church, the Methodist, whose bell echoed across the valley; the first newspaper, The Custer Leader, and the first doctor, lawyer, banker, monument cutter, and general stores. A sod house, hotel, blacksmith shop, livery barn, and flour mill aided early development. The County Agricultural Society was organized here and held the first two county fairs in Westerville, 1881-1882. The first county teachers institute also convened here.
Westerville was bypassed as the county seat and, when the railroad was built farther south in 1886, the town gradually declined. After 100 years, the village is an active community center which remains proud of its heritage. The modern farms which dot the peaceful valley pay tribute to the courage and perseverance of Westerville's early pioneers who now rest in the cemetery overlooking the village.
]]>Custer County, named in memory of General George Armstrong Custer, was organized July 27, 1877. Frontiersmen and pioneer ranchers had been living in the area since 1872. Earlier, soldiers from Fort McPherson and settlers from the Platte River counties had regularly made hunting expeditions here, for its river valleys were noted feeding grounds for deer, elk and antelope.
The log ranch house of Milo F. Young, then located in Section 23, Township 15N, Range 22W, was designated as the temporary county seat. Built in 1876, it officially served as the county courthouse for seven years, though most of the county records were kept in the homes of the officials. In it, on December 17, 1880, were held the hearings which lead to the Olive-Fisher trial for the lynching of Mitchell and Ketchum, one of history's most noted feuds between ranchers and homesteaders.
The log house continued to serve as a private residence for many years but was finally abandoned. At the request of several community organizations in 1933, the Young estate donated the house to the village of Callaway, and it was moved here to Morgan Park.
]]>The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry was organized in Washington, D.C. in 1867. During the 1870's, it was the major voice of the American farmer and its social, educational, and fraternal activities brightened farm life. "Granger Laws", enacted by state governments, established the pattern for modern America's regulated free enterprise economy.
The Nebraska State Grange was organized in 1872, but errors in its co-operative ventures and the rise of the Farmers Alliance led to its decline. The Grange movement was re-established with the organization of Custer Center Grange near here in February, 1911. The State Grange was reorganized in Broken Bow, November, 1911. Local Granges have spread over the state and are noted for contributions to community life and sound farm policy. Custer Center Grange continues as the oldest Grange organization in Nebraska.
James D. Ream--first Master of both the Custer Center and Nebraska State Granges--was one of Nebraska's leading agricultural pioneers. One of the first settlers in this valley in 1880, he developed his homestead into the beautiful Cedar Lawn Farm.
]]>A discarded Indian bow suggested the name for a town. Wilson Hewitt, an early homesteader, had applied for the location of a post office on his place. Approving the location, the government rejected Hewitt's first three suggested names as being too similar to names previously approved. Remembering a broken bow recently found nearby, Hewitt then submitted the name "Broken Bow," which the Post Office Department readily approved. This area was the center of what eventually came to be known as the Sod House Frontier. As homesteaders began to enter this largely treeless region, they made their first homes of prairie sod, which they cut into strips. Early churches, schools and some business places were also made of sod. Homesteaders used sod to construct corrals, henhouses, corn cribs, wind breaks, and even pig pens. One enterprising Custer County resident even constructed a full two storied sod house while others were usually a single story or story and a half. As the region became more settled, Broken Bow grew, and in 1882 became the county seat of Custer County. That same year, Mr. Jess Gandy donated the sites for the county courthouse and for the city square.
]]>Cumro, named by William Edmunds for his home town in Wales, was a thriving frontier settlement located between Georgetown post office, four miles to the west, and Eudell post office, three miles to the east. It boasted a school, blacksmith shop, physician, and store, with a church and cemetery to the north. Cumro post office was established in 1885 with Morgan W. Jones as postmaster and discontinued in April 1943.
In the summer of 1877, the Kearney and Blackhills Stage Line followed the South Loup River valley with stops south of Eudell and at Georgetown. A Union Pacific line planned for the valley was surveyed through Cumro in the 1880s, but the line was never built because the railroad experienced financial difficulties.
Cattlemen began bringing cattle into the valley in 1869, and conflicts erupted when homesteaders challenged the cattlemen's claim to the land. Fierce blizzards of 1880-1881 decimated the herds, hastening the end of the open range. Among descendants of the cattlemen and homesteaders who settled the area can be found such names as George, Morgan, Trew, Wood, and many others.
]]>In 1886 Ansley was platted in southeastern Custer County by the Lincoln Land Company, headed by R. O. Phillips. Ansley was named for Eliza J. Ansley, who invested in real estate there. The site was purchased from ranchman Anthony Walkinson. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad (later the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy) reached the new settlement soon after it was founded. In 1986 approximately thirty-five Burlington Northern trains per day passed through Ansley. Ansley was the first Nebraska town west of Grand Island to own a power plant and water system. The Ansley Electric Light and Power Company, built by C. J. Stevens, was incorporated September 20, 1892. Destroyed by fire in 1904, it was replaced by another power plant, which burned in 1910. The Municipal Light and Power System was completed in 1911. Ansley's waterworks company was organized and its facilities completed in 1893. Ansley reached its peak population of 817 in 1930. In its centennial year of 1986 the town's more than 600 inhabitants continued to use the slogan applied to Ansley in 1916 by merchant William S. Mattley--"Push, that's Ansley."
]]>The most infamous Nebraska showdown between settlers and cattlemen began in 1878 on the Custer County homesteads of Luther Mitchell and Ami Ketchum, located one mile to the south. Conflict arose when Ketchum's crops were trampled by cattle belonging to Isom Prentice (Print) Olive, who brought his herds from Texas to Nebraska's open range.
After Ketchum had been implicated in stealing cattle, the Buffalo County sheriff deputized Olive foreman Bob Stevens to arrest Ketchum. The sheriff was not aware that Stevens was Print Olive's brother, wanted for murder in Texas under his real name, Bob Olive. On November 27, 1878, Olive and three cowboys rode to the Ketchum homestead, where gunfire erupted. Bob Olive was mortally wounded in the shootout and died three days later.
After surrendering to authorities, Mitchell and Ketchum were briefly jailed in Kearney. On December 10, while being taken to Custer County for arraignment, the two were seized by Print Olive and his men and lynched in a rugged canyon near present Callaway. When the bodies were discovered the next day, they were also found to have been burned.
]]>Broken Bow was platted 1882 by Jesse Gandy. He donated lots to people who would build a house or establish a business. He did this to influence voters to make the new town the Custer County seat, which they did in an election that fall. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad reached Broken Bow in 1886. Anticipating new commerce, the Lincoln Land Company purchased large tracts of land. The town flourished with the arrival of the railroad. The region’s rich agricultural territory was now open to distant markets, and Broken Bow became a regional trade center.
Gandy’s plat reserved one block as a public square surrounded by business lots. The square has served as the commercial district’s focal point, landscaped with trees, walkways, and a bandstand. The town square centers on buildings dating to the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, representing the town’s periods of development. The Broken Bow commercial historic district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
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