Memoirs of Albert Barnett, “McCook’s Builder”

Note: This is a transcript of handwritten notes by Albert Barnett, found wedged behind a drawer of his desk after his death. Articles about Barnett often mention the added title of “McCook’s Builder” and “McCook’s Master Builder” as an indication to the reputation he built during McCook’s early years. We assume this was written in 1906 as the Lincoln Land Company plotted the original town of McCook on May 20, 1882. The town plat was officially filed in the Red Willow County Clerk’s office at 9 a.m., June 8, 1882, and the sale of lots in McCook began. At that time the county seat was Indianola, Nebraska.

Twenty-four years ago, today the lots of McCook were placed on the market for sale. Twenty-four years ago, nothing existed on the town site to prevent an unobstructed view. Nothing more than an occasional cactus and a few sparsely grown blades of grass. Not a tree or bush could be seen looking across the land where our town now lies. From the Fairview Post Office which stood on the riverbank just south of where the south McCook school is now located, in looking off to the north nothing was in view but the sloping hill of the town site. The ground had been plotted, the stakes driven marking off the lots and blocks. But there was nothing that even a bird might rest on but a few scattered sunflower stocks and there were no birds.

H.C. Ryder had come from his home at Crete the previous February and bought several quarters of land for a sheep ranch, so he said. As our railroad was being completed west and was to reach Denver in July, it was definitely settled that there would have to be a division headquarters someplace between Hastings and Denver, both Indianola and Culbertson were making efforts to secure the same. With Indianola in the lead and determined to win. Meetings were held there by the citizens and different schemes were devised and ways were considered to induce the railroad officials to locate the division there. Money was subscribed to purchase the site for a roundhouse, shops, and yards which was to be donated to the railroad company.

Several of the businessmen who thought they were on the inside made trips to Lincoln to see the railroad officials and sometimes reported “sure things”. Ryder was still buying land for his sheep ranch.

One Indianola businessman who had been put on to the secrets of Ryder’s sheep ranch had subscribed $500 towards a fund to secure the railroad division and this liberal donation for his hometown made him the hero of the hour. Others caught the inspiration, and a large amount of money was raised to pull for the division, and had they been successful I suppose there would have been no McCook. Being only a boy then and commanding the sumptuous salary of $50 a month, I was entirely on the outside. Nobody hesitated to talk before me both pro and con and I had knowledge of both Indianola’s hopes and fears.

Ryder had secured enough land for his sheep ranch, a part of which was immediately turned over to the Lincoln Land Company, and Captain Phillips soon had it plotted, and they called it McCook.

Raising money at Indianola for the purpose of trying to get the division did not cost them much and I have often wondered if upon the account of their getting off so cheap in the fight for the railroad division was not what lead to the founding of the Western Watch Works and Lamborn’s Golden Ochre.

But a part of the sheep ranch had been called McCook. A few enterprising businessmen had decided they would open up in business in the new town and about a dozen of we high salaried people were sitting on the bank of the Republican (not the Wabash) waiting for the sale of town lots. I was holding down a bum lumberyard, the tail end of which had been a lumberyard at Culbertson when they hoped for the division which belonged to the man I have since been in partnership with. Al Ebert was doing the same kind of stunt for Mr. Franklin and Bert Andrews had a pharmacy for the late Doc Green.

Fairview post office was a sod building which was a combined hotel, store, and Post Office, kept and run by Colvin and Russell and we high priced men got our meals at the hotel and slept over at our respective places of business. The Frees and Hocknell Lumber Co. had put up a small frame building, and as there had been more demand for feed than lumber, a car of corn had been shipped in and thrown in this building, and Charley Babcock and I slept in the corn bin on top of an old blanket or two. One nite as Charley and I were turning in he said, “Barnett, you have heard about people sleeping on husk mattresses”. I said, “yes”. He said, “It is nothing like the clear corn”. One night he was down to Indianola, and I stayed there alone. I had just come from Chicago and of course was a tenderfoot. The boys who lived around on the few ranches and who had been coming after their mail as well as some who were camping here waiting for the town to start knew I was alone and thought they would scare me. They rapped on the window in the middle of the night and wanted in. I got up and lit a light and got an old bulldog revolver I had bought at a Jew pawnshop before I left Chicago and with that in my hand, I opened the door and told them to come in. I expected to find regular hold up men, but they were only the boys I had been playing croquet with in the daytime and I do not know who was scared the worst.

After about a week of high living at the Fairview hotel the lots were put on the market and probably a hundred were sold on the first day. Ryder bought the second lot north of Wm. Line’s present residence and that is where the first house was started. Ike Moore hauled the first load of lumber to this house which was the first load of lumber to come on the town site and I loaded it. At noon we went over to the hotel for dinner, and all stopped to wash at the bench which stood outside the door where a bucket of water and six wash pans were kept for the use of the boarders. Someone noticed the load of lumber on the town site and called the attention of the gang to it. Really, that load of lumber on the town site looked big enough to build a whole house…. The first house was not very large. In thirty days, thirty houses were built. Ryder that year built over thirty himself. The town went with a boom, and it was all hustle and bustle.

A great part of this hotel was at Indianola and Churchill, the landlord, put it on cars and brought it up here. When dinner was called, we rushed in like a lot of railroad graders when there are more graders than there are seats. There were a lot more boarders than there were plates, and we did not stand on ceremony.

The first passenger train went through from Denver the night of July 3, 1882, and everybody in the country was at the station to see it. I think the station was not completed. The first through train was of great importance to us all. It came along about nine o’clock and some wondered whether any passengers could get off or not. Someone said if anyone did get off, we were to show them to the hotels. When the train came, we were surprised to hear one of our gang (I can’t remember who), yell out, “Right this way for the all go hungry hotel”, and he meant Homer Colvins and Bill Irwan who boarded at a shed boarding house they had just put up; yelled for it and he gave it the name of “the last chance”. This created a lot of laughter and put everyone one a good humor for the Fourth of July celebration the next day.

Mr. Nettleton had been the main man in erecting a small Congregational Church, built where the present one now stands. A Bowery was built along the north side of the church and those who wanted to dance went out to the bowery and those who did not, or were too tired, sat inside the church and watched through the windows.  We have had many Fourth of July celebrations since then but in one respect, that beat them all. The boys and girls from the ranches came and had such good times. I will never forget one young fellow there by the name of Davis, he would not dance in his shirtsleeves, and he wore a heavy winter coat. They danced square dances altogether and he never missed a set. The dance began about two o’clock and at about four the sun streamed in from the west and the sweat streamed off Davis by the buckets full, but every set found him at it.

At first, he danced with the married women, but they could not stand his speed. The caller called changes when it was mostly swing, and that was Davis’s long suit. He always swung until the caller announced the next figure and that gave him from two to six circles with his partner and when dancing with the girls he always “waisted” them as we called it when I went to dances, and with the heavy plow shoes that he wore and that winter coat, along towards the last when the caller called “swing” his feet hardly left the floor, but he bowed his back and along with that persistent underhold that he got, and with a big red handkerchief that was as wet as a sponge, the perspiration running down his cheeks and neck and even dripping off his fingers, and that self-satisfied never let go look on his face, he took hold for the swing left an impression on me that I have not gotten entirely over yet. I sometimes long for that happy Fourth of July and I know Davis does too if he is still alive.