NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
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NSHS RG3761-23-12 good story – even if based more on fiction than fact – has always been popular among the newspaper- reading public. One such tale involving a shrewd Nebraskan, prairie dogs and a gullible English nobleman, appeared in the Omaha Daily Bee on Dec. 17, 1885, under the headline "There's Millions in It!" The story, attributed to the Chicago Herald, explained how an unnamed, down-on-his-luck Nebraskan disposed of a worthless homestead claim. "Last spring," the homesteader said, "I went out into Western Nebraska and homesteaded a quarter section. I hadn't seen the land, but took it supposin' it was all right. But when I got there I found it already inhabited. About 150 acres of the 160 were covered with a prairie-dog town. Well, I concluded to settle down and see what I could do, and I'm mighty glad now that I did. About two weeks ago I was up to the railroad station trying to get trusted for some bacon and flour and terbacker, an' feelin' right smart discouraged. I was out of money and grub, and the winter was comin' on fast, an' I couldn't see any way out of it but to eat prairie dogs, an' they're mighty hard to catch. But that day was the turning point in my luck. While I was at the station an Englishman got off the cars an' said as how he was out west lookin' for a place to make an investment. Said he'd heard o' the fur business, and wanted to know if he was out in the fur country yet." Quickly the homesteader saw an opportunity, and invited the nobleman out to see his land. "An' he went out with me, an' I showed him the prairie-dog town, an', as luck would have it, it was a bright sunny day, an' the dogs was out scootin' around by the hundreds. 'Talkin' about furs,' I says, 'what d'yo think of that? I've been six years growin' these mink, . . . an' they double every year.'" The homesteader told his fascinated guest that "they're worth $1 apiece. There's millions in it." In less than an hour the Nebraskan sold out to the Englishman for $7,000 cash and took a train East. Nebraskans may have laughed, but less than five years later, on June 23, 1890, a similar story (this time attributed to the Chicago Tribune) appeared in the Bee. In the second version of the now well-known story, Nebraska merchant C. A. Hastings regaled a Tribune reporter with the experience of Lord Wynford, who had stopped at North Platte "during his tour of the prairies. He seemed greatly pleased with the wild west and intimated that he would like to invest some money in something good. There was a smart young Irish lawyer in the town whose parents had had some unpleasant dealings with Lord Wynford in the old country. This young lawyer had lived in North Platte about two years. He came there to examine a claim he had purchased on paper. To his disappointment his farm was nothing but a prairie dog town." The lawyer called on Lord Wynford and offered for sale what he called "the most profitable investment in America." The pair then drove out to the homestead to inspect what the lawyer called his "mink farm." The farm "delighted Lord Wynford and on returning to the city he gave $500 for the dog town. He owns it now and the good-for-nothing place is called 'the lord's mink farm.'" In both 1885 and 1890 a number of newspapers around the country reprinted the stories of the Nebraskan who unloaded a worthless homestead on an English nobleman by convincing him that prairie dogs were mink. It seems unlikely that the tales could have been true, but they delighted newspaper readers then and now and made good copy. ■ Visit the Nebraska State Historical Society's website at nebraskahistory.org. A Brief History There's Millions in It! By Patricia C. Gaster, Nebraska State Historical Society A 14 NEBRASKAland • DECEMBER 2016 NSHS NSHS NSHS NSHS NSHS RG3 RG3 RG3 RG3 RG3761 761- 761 761 761 23 1 23-1 23 1 23 1 23 12 Lithograph on a card of a "Prairie Dog City."