Chapter 3: The Mill On The Rock Falls

before followed anyone off the farm, this time went with him. The man soon realized he was lost and freezing. He stopped, not knowing what to do, and the dog got in front of him and barked. Ignoring the animal, he started on. Again the dog got in front of him and barked. When he realized what she was trying to do, he turned and followed her and she brought him safely home.

William Kestenholtz and his brother- in-law, Dan Davis, had headed for Chambers, that warm morning, leaving Mrs. Kestenholtz and the two small children at home. By afternoon, when she had burned all the hay on hand in the house, the mother knew that it would be foolish to leave the little ones alone in the house while she tried to go after more. So she sensibly cut up her brother Dan's good tool box for fuel, and when that was gone she began breaking up her chairs. Her husband, on his way home through the storm, gave his horse its head and it brought him home, although he didn't know he had arrived until the buggy wheel caught on the corner of the house.

Dennis Spellman, riding a mule, had started for his home, six miles south of O'Neill. Freezing and unable to see where he was going, he got off the mule, gave it its head and took a firm hold on its tail. The mule took him to the home of a neighbor, where he spent the night. Rhode Allen, walking to his home, also south of O'Neill, wandered through the sightless void until he struck a fence, which he followed until he fell exhausted in the Sparks' yard. There Mr. Sparks found him and took him in, where he and his wife worked over him for hours, but saved his life. John Bouska, sensing something strange about the too-warm weather, thought he had better bring his only cow in from the field and started after 14 her. He had barely reached his little straw barn, thirty steps from the house, when the storm broke. He turned at once to try to get back to his soddy but it had disappeared. Thirty steps back in the approximate direction of the house he heard a rattle behind and to one side of him. He turned toward the sound and a few steps away came against the house. The rattle was a piece of loose tin on the stovepipe. If he had not heard it flapping he would have walked on out onto the open prairie. The cow, out in the field, did not survive the storm.

The Tomjack boys, Mike and Anton, were at the barn, caring for the stock, when they saw the storm rolling toward the farm. They ran for the house, were caught by the furious gale and literally blown into the house when they opened the door. Their father promptly scolded them for making so much noise and disturbance— until he saw the cause of it.

At the Charles Moulton farm a cellar under the kitchen was reached through a trap door. During the storm someone opened the door and three- year-old Ethel fell into the cellar, landed in a barrel and broke her collar bone. Since a doctor could not be reached for days, her parents set the bones, bound her arm to her side and hoped for the best. The injury healed in fine shape.

As the days passed, each one adding its quota of horror to the tragic aftermath of the great storm, it finally became known that more than twenty people and over half the livestock in Holt County had perished. No wonder then that many tears were shed and a hush of sadness hung over the prairie for weeks.

Shortly after the birth of Minnie Pierce the man named Thorton had come to the Pierce door, weeping, to report that his wife and baby had died. William Pierce had been one of those who helped make the coffin and bury the mother and babe. A few days later a pair of strange men walked into the Pierce place. They, too, were weeping. They had lost all their sheep in the storm, far to the west on Rush Lake, and were weary and almost starved. The Pierces fed them. A little later Frank saw his mother crying and asked her why. "Oh," she wailed, "if only someone who wasn't crying would come in and talk to me." Most Nebraska blizzards come up much more slowly than did the killer of '88, and most last an average of three days. Had this one lasted that long its toll would have been much more frightful. That it was of such brief duration was attributed by many Holt Countians to the fact that so many were praying earnestly for its quick ending.

Even so: On the twelfth of January in the year of '88 The greatest blizzard ever known Swept o'er Nebraska State.

Mill On The Rock Falls Chapter Three Instead of The Mill On The Floss, Holt County had a Mill on the Rock Falls, surely as beautiful and picturesque a setting for a mill as George Eliot had for hers. It also had its Mill on Eagle Creek; its Mill on the Elk-horn; its Mill on the Middle Branch; two on the Big Sandy and no doubt a number of others.

The Rock Falls are located on Eagle Creek, some ten or twelve miles north of Emmet. The Eagle, a rock bottomed stream, is unusual in Nebraska, whose streams nearly all flow on sandy beds, and the Falls are one of the The old mill at Rock Falls. Clay Johnson collection, 1964. county's beauty spots.

Grist mills, the only places where the residents of frontier communities could get their home-raised grain ground into meal, were of extreme importance to the border settlements, many of them still far from a railroad. People came from what in those days seemed long distances— up to two or three days travel by ox team— to get their milling done. The old water wheel mills ground slowly at best and in rush seasons there were often long lines of farmers waiting their turns at the hopper. In many cases they waited a day or two, which could well make "a trip to the mill" take a full week for outlying customers.

Since Holt County had the Elkhorn River and numerous smaller streams, it was well supplied with water powered mills, strategically located all across its wide area. A New Yorker named James Ross built a number of the county's mills. The mill on the Rock Falls was one, built about 1884. The owner was William Veal, who put in the dike, close by the falls, which provided water for the mill race which in turn powered a horizontal wheel on the south side of the mill. Mr. Veal lived in a log house near the mill until high water, one spring, washed out the foundation and let all the family's canned fruit and vegetables in the cellar float away on the flood. When the water went down, he used a horse power winch to slide the house several hundred feet back from the creek bank.

Twice high water from heavy snow melts washed out the dike. Mr. Veal put it back in with horses and scrapers the first time. The second time he was unable to pay for the repairs and the finance company hauled the machinery away, leaving the mill inoperative. He then used the tall old mill building for the storage of grain and other effects. In 1897 he sold the place to John Vequist who had come over from Sweden in 1881.

Probably the best known mill in the county was that belonging to "Old Bill" Nollkamper. Farther down the Eagle, at Turner, it was only a few miles south of the Niobrara and its trade territory was vast, extending Rock Falls as they look today. 15 across the river and well into Dakota. William Nollkamper, born in Germany in 1850, arrived in Paddock on the Niobrara twenty-seven years later. In 1878 his betrothed, Marie Johanns- man, followed him to America and they were married at Nebraska City. Four years later they moved to the little inland town of Turner, where they bought a half interest in the already established Bonesteel and Turner mill. They were soon the sole owners.

Ambitious, hardworking people, the Nollkampers also operated a large general store and a sizable farm and ranch, running far back from the creek on the open prairie. Old Bill soon employed many men and women in the operation of the mill, the store and the ranch. The big store and mill played a vital part in the lives of the settlers of the area. Day after day long strings of teams and saddle horses stood at the old hitching rail in front of the store while farmers, cowboys, Indians, women and children passed in and out its doors. Men loafed at the mill, exchanging news, women visited in the store, children never tired of watching the roaring mill race and the steady turning of the old water wheel, or of skipping pebbles on the big pond. As one young onlooker described it, "It was real exciting to see all the pullies, belts, sieves, shakers and grinders working in harmony. The dust was thick and the noise was deafening— but it got the job done." One day, while some of the young bloods of the community loafed at the mill, they amused themselves by shooting at the blacksmith's chickens with shotgun shells— after extracting the shot and replacing it with wheat. Each shot made the contacted chicken leap high in the air, then dash away with considerable noise and confusion. Presently young Willie, one of Old Bill's sons, took a notion to Ruins of the old Nollkamper mill at Eagle. George Spindler and his nephew, Dick Spindler are shown in this 1939 picture. Courtesy Will Spindler. pepper the leader of the flock, a giant pet rooster with a bright red comb. For a joke, one of the men slipped a genuine shot-loaded shell into the gun, then handed it to Willie, who took careful aim at the red comb and fired. The recoil from the gun almost upset the boy, and the discharge from the barrel definitely upset the rooster, which fell over dead. Poor Willie ran to the pet and stood him on his legs, but when he fell over again and again, he gave up and burst into heartbreaking sobs.

A frequent visitor at the mill was Elias Spindler, a small, homely, bald- headed, vain bachelor who had a high squeaky voice. Elias dressed well and covered his baldness with a variety of cheap wigs ranging in color from blonde to black. One day some of the mill hands were at work on the dam when Elias strolled up wearing his newest wig. While he chatted with the laborers one of the Nollkamper boys slipped up behind him with a stick and flipped the wig out into the deep water below the dam. Without hesitation Elias dived in, rescued his wig and crawled out, very wet and very angry. Cursing at the top of his squeaky voice, he headed for home, followed by the delighted guffaws of the mill hands.

The Charles Blitzke family, who made regular trips to the mill and the store in those days, left some interesting figures to posterity. Their accounts showed that they bought salt for three cents a pound, sugar for nine and coffee for ten.

Nollkamper was a prosperous and influential man when, in 1907, he began tearing down the famous old Eagle Mill, preparatory to moving it to the new town of Gregory, South Dakota, where the Gregory Roller Mills opened for business in 1908. Soon all that was left of the once busy Eagle Mill and store were the high, crumbling stone foundations of the old mill.

The mill on the Big Sandy was another of those built by James Ross in the early eighties. This one for Martin Sanders who had been a miller in his native Holland. It was located about six miles from Dustin, a post office two miles south of the Niobrara. In her Pilgrimage to the Prairie, Mrs. Merrill Anderson writes that the miller had a government contract to supply flour to the Indians across the Niobrara on the reservation. Her father's homestead was three miles north of the mill. "Most of the settlers refused to let the Red men camp on their land," she related, "but Father did not object to them, since they had to camp somewhere on their way to and from the mill. There were almost always some Indians camped near our house and they often came to beg, or just to visit. We got well acquainted with them and one morning when I was drying dishes for Mother one of Yellow Horse's squaws came in. She let out a disgusted grunt, jerked the towel away from me and finished the dishes. I have liked Indians from that day on." While this family did not fear Indians and got along well with them, most of the other families kept their children indoors when Indians were camped in the vicinity, waiting for their grain to be ground. One account notes that "the children cried when they found their dog's feet down by the camp ground." In 1895 Sanders moved his mill to a new location down the Sandy to a point near the Badger Crossing, making it more convenient for his customers from north of the river. The Logerwalls then put in a store, a big two-story building with an upper room that served for community meetings, church services and dances. The Badger post office was established there, and then a school, making an active little settlement town. The stage line and mail route from Stuart to Butte passed the mill and crossed