ERNEST NICHOLSON'S RETURN--THE BUILDING WEST OF TOWN--"WHAT'S IT ALL
ABOUT"
The big hotel from Calias had not long since been unloaded and decorated
a corner lot in Megory. All that remained in Calias were the buildings
belonging to Nicholson Brothers, consisting of an old two-story frame
hotel, a two-story bank, the saloon, drug store, their own office and a
few smaller ones. It was a hard life for the Caliasites and the
Megoryites were not inclined to soften it. On the other hand, she was
growing like a mushroom. Everything tended to make it the prairie
metropolis; land was booming, and buyers were plentiful. Capital was
also finding its way to the town, and nothing to disturb the visible
prosperity.
But a shrewd person, at that very time, had control of machinery that
would cause a radical change in this community, and in a very short time
too. This man was Ernest Nicholson, and referring to his return, I was
at the depot in Oristown the day he arrived. There he boarded an auto
and went west to Megory. On his arrival there, he ordered John Nogden to
proceed to Calias, load the bank building, get all the horses
obtainable, and proceed at once to haul the building to--no, not to
Megory--this is what the Megoryites thought, when, with seventy-six head
of horses hitched to it, they saw the bank of Calias coming toward
Megory. But when it got to within half a mile of the south side,
swerved off to the west. About six that evening, when the sun went down,
the Bank of Calias was sitting on the side of a hill that sloped to the
north, near the end of the survey.
Now what did it mean? That was the question that everybody began asking
everybody else. What was up? Why was Ernest Nicholson moving the bank of
Calias five miles west of Megory and setting it down on or near the end
of the survey? There were so many questions being asked with no one to
answer, that it amused me. Then someone suggested that it might be the
same old game, and here would come a pause, then the question, "What old
game?" "Why, another Calias?"--some bait to make money. Then, "Oh, I
see," said the wise town dads, just a hoax. That answered the question,
just a snare to catch the unwary. Tell them that the railroad would
build to the Tipp County line. Sell them some lots, for that is what the
"bluff" meant. Get their good money and then, Oh, Ha! Ha! Ha! it was too
funny when one saw the joke, and Megoryites continued to laugh. Had not
Nicholson Brothers said a whole lot about getting the railroad; and that
it was sure coming up the Monca. It had come, had it not. Haw! Haw! Haw!
Ho! Ho! Ho! just another Nicholson stall, Haw! Haw! Haw! and Nicholsons
got the laugh again. The railroad is in Megory, and here it will stop
for ten years. One hundred thousand people will come to Megory to
register for Tipp County lands, and "Watch Megory grow" was all that
could be heard.
Ernest would come to Megory, have a pleasant chat, treat the boys, tell
a funny story, and be off. Nobody was mean enough or bold enough to tell
him to his face any of the things they told to his back.
Ernest was never known to say anything about it. His scheme simply kept
John Nogden moving buildings. He wrote checks in payment, that the bank
of Calias cashed, for it was open for business the next day after it had
been moved out on the prairie, five miles west of Megory.
The court record showed six quarter sections of land west of town had
recently been transferred; the name of the receiver was unknown to
anyone in Megory, but such prices, forty to fifty dollars per acre. The
people who had sold, brought the money to the Megory banks, and
deposited it. All they seemed to know was that someone drove up to their
house and asked if they wanted to sell. Some did not, while others said
they were only five miles from Megory, and if they sold they would have
to have a big price, because Megory was the "Town of the Little Crow"
and the gateway to acres of the finest land in the world, to be opened
soon. "What is your price?" he would ask, and whether it was forty,
forty-five or fifty per acre, he bought it.
This must have gone on for sixty days with everybody wondering "what it
was all about", until it got on the nerves of the Megoryites; and even
the town dads began to get a little fearful. When Ernest was approached
he would wink wisely, hand out a cigar or buy a drink, but he never made
anybody the wiser.
A lady came out from Des Moines, bought a lot, and let a contract for a
hotel building 24 x 140, and work was begun on it immediately. This was
getting ahead of Megory, where a hotel had just been completed 25 x 100
feet, said by the Megoryites to be the "best" west of a town of six
thousand population, one hundred fifty miles down the road. Whenever
anything like a real building goes up in a little town on the prairie,
with their collection of shacks, it is always called "the best building"
between there and somewhere else.
I shall not soon forget the anxiety with which the people watched the
building which continued to go up west of Megory, and still no one there
seemed willing to admit that Nicholson Brothers were "live," but spent
their argument in trying to convince someone that they were only wind
jammers and manipulators of knavish plots, to immesh the credulous.
What actually happened was this, and Ernest told me about it afterwards
in about the following words:
"Well, Oscar, after Megory turned our offer down, I knew there were just
two things to do, and that was, to either make good or leave the
country. Megory is full of a lot of fellows that have never known
anything but Keya Paha county, and when the road missed Calias, and
struck Megory, they took the credit for displaying a superior knowledge.
I knew we were going to be the big laughing stock of the reservation,
and since I did not intend to leave the country, I got to thinking. The
more I pondered the matter, the more determined I became that something
had to be done, and I finally made up my mind to do it." Ernest
Nicholson was not the kind of a man to make idle declarations. "I went
down to Omaha and saw some business friends of mine and suggested to
them just what I intended to do, thence to Des Moines and got father,
and again we went into Chicago and secured an appointment with Hewitt,
who listened attentively to all that we had to say, and the import of
this was that Megory, being over five miles east of the Tipp County
line, it was difficult to drive range cattle that distance through a
settled country. They are so unused to anything that resembles
civilization, that ranchers hate to drive even five miles through a
settled country, besides the annoyance it would habitually cause
contrary farmers, when it comes to accommodating the ranchers. But that
is not all. With sixty-six feet open between the wire fences, the range
cattle at any time are liable to start a stampede, go right through, and
a lot of damage follows. I showed him that most of the cattle men were
still driving their stock north and shipping over the C.P. & St. L. Now
knowing that the directors had ordered the extension of the line to get
the cattle business, Hewitt looked serious, finally arose from his
chair, and went over to a map that entirely covered the side of the wall
and showed all the lines of the C. & R.W. He meditated a few minutes and
then turned around and said: 'Go back and buy the land that has been
described.'" It all seemed simple enough when it was done.
By the time that the extension had been completed to Megory, the
building that had been moved west of town had company in the way of many
new ones, and by this time comprised quite a burg, and claimed the name
of New Calias. The new was to distinguish between its old site and its
present one. After Megory turned them down, Ernest had made a
declaration or defiance that he would build a town on the Little Crow
and its name would be Calias.