Greeley County, Nebraska

Scotia Nebraska - 1918

The accompanying picture was taken from of Scotia, Nebraska's main street from the center intersection looking north. My aunt Mary Jane Hansen loanedme a picture post card with this photograph on it and I had enlarged copies made at my favorite camera store here in Lincoln. The original post card is 3 1/2" X 5 in" and I had the copies enlarged to 9" X 12".

The post card was addressed to my grandmother Grace (Stichler) Johnson at Homestead, Nebraska and was postmarked at Scotia, Nebraska at 2 p.m. on February 5, 1918. The cost of the postage was two cents. The message was from a relative living in Scotia concerning the declining health of one of my grandmother's uncles.

The Homestead post office operated from its establishment on July 18, 1904 until it was closed on February 18, 1916 according to Elton A. Perkey in his book Perkey's Nebraska Place Names (Lincoln: J. & L. Lee Company, 4th edition, 2003). Technically, there was no Homestead post office when writer of the message wrote this post card to my grandmother. The author was using the old designation for the locality in northwestern Greeley County. My great aunt Nell (Johnson) Wetzel was post master of the Homestead post office which was located in her home near the Amity cemetery. Mom told me that Nell Wetzel would ride a horse south to meet the mail carrier from Scotia and bring the bag(s) of mail back to the Amity area.

The photograph of Scotia's main street is interesting for its clarity given that it comes from a smaller post card photograph taken with an old style camera. The technician at my camera store was impressed with what she was able to do when enlarging it. The photograph's weakness is that it does not have good depth. A modern camera would give one more depth perception.

The right hand side of Scotia's main street looking north begins with what was Shoemaker's store in my youth. Historically, it was Scotia's opera house and a store. The sign above the awning is weathered or scrubbed out, but I can barely make out the words Ed Bodousek. I seem to recall that name in the historical files column authored by editor "Boo" Williams in his The Scotia Register that was published each week. I think that the store also was operated at one time by the Stanner family. It may be that the Stanner family had the store prior to the Shoemaker's or the Stanner's may have had just the meat market portion of the business. I remember that mom has a large two-tined, all-metal meat fork for use in turning roasts, chickens, etc. while they were cooking. The fork had Sanitary Meat Market; Scotia, Nebraska engraved on the handle. She said that this fork was from the Shoemaker/Stanner store.

There is a gap in the right side of mainstreet north of Shoemaker's store that was later filled in by the building that housed The Scotia Register and another adjacent building that was the doctor's office. There is a cluster of wooden buildings existing on up the street in 1918. The first one has a sign noting that it is the post office. The last one in the line has a sign above its awning indicating that it is a dry goods store. It would be interesting to know whether the cluster of frame wood buildings was the same ones that housed the Gambles store operated by Henry and Polly Johnson and Tiny's Shoe Shop operated by Mr. Biskeborn when I was a youth? My guess is that they were the same buildings.

The large frame building farthest away on the right side is the hotel. It was the Home Hotel operated by the McEntire family when I was a kid. I remember eating with dad and mom in the hotel's cafe or restaurant on Saturday nights when I was a kid. The McEntire family moved to California in the late 1940s or early 1950s. The building later was operated by Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Yax as a rest home in the 1950s.

The left side of the street begins with the Bredthauer store. The frame building located just north of the Bredthauer store was later demolished. During my youth the location of the 1918 frame building was occupied by a subsequent brick building that housed the Scotia Pharmacy operated by William and Harriet Waters.

There is a frame building located behind the evergreen trees just above the woman standing in the buggy. It has an awning and must have been some kind of business place. The next frame building located just to the north, where the State Bank of Scotia now stands, looks like a private residence. However, it has an awning. Thus, I think that it was a place of business of some sort. The last building on the left side of the street to the far north is a house. I think it may have been demolished to make room for the Bredthauer garage when it was built about 1950. The Dulitz house now occupied by the Marshalls is farther down the street and I do not think that it existed in 1918.

Note the electric and telephone lines at the top of the photograph. There is a telephone pole down the street on the left hand side. The east-west road that is now Highway 22 is a narrow track. The buggy shows that the transition to the automobile was taking time despite the advent of Ford's Model T in 1908. The automobile on the right hand side of the street has one of the early license plates. The first Nebraska license plate that was one piece was in 1915, but the county numbering scheme did not come until later. Driver's licenses were not required until the early 1920s. Note that there is no stop sign at the end of main street where one now would have to stop for Highway 22. It was an era of driving on poor roads at your own risk.

There are not a lot of trees looking down the street to the north in 1918. More trees exist north of Highway 22 today. In 1918, one can see through to the country side. Scotia's post office was founded in 1873 so the town is 45 years old at the time of this photograph. Scotia was at its peak population about this time and one would have thought that in the Tree Planter's State and home to Arbor Day that they would have donea better job of planting trees. Elton A. Perkey in his Perkey's Nebraska Place Names (Lincoln: J. & L. Lee Company, revised edition 2003) wrote that Scotia's population peaked at 559 in 1920. Its population was estimated at 265 persons in 2007 or down 47.4 percent since the peak.

A few further comments are in order about Homestead Precinct the destination of this post card. The post card was going to my grandparent's Sandhill place south in Ericson. It was last occupied by my cousin Roger Johnson. I had many relatives in mom's side of the family who lived in this precinct in the early 1900s. Mom told a lot of family stories that had been passed down about those years. One big problem in this area was the lack of wet meadows. Any sort of drought was a big disaster in this area. Many Nebraska Sandhill areas have wet meadows and, if you own enough land, you can harvest adequate hay even in dry years. The conditions faced in Homestead Precinct led to its depopulation following a rapid settlement. Darrell Byerly has told me, based on his research connected with his work with the Amity Cemetery restoration project, Homestead Precinct was once home to over 200 people. I think that fewer than 10 persons live in the precinct today.

One final Scotia story is in order. I remember the Miller Brother's Hardware from my youth. The Miller brothers also ran the mortuary. They figure in an account related to me by Charles Beebe. I have had some interesting talks with Charles Beebe on my visits to Scotia since I retired. Charles told me that the Miller brothers were quite the practical jokers. During the heyday of Scotia, a salesman carne into town on the train. He had his luggage and a large trunk that he pulled on wheels. The trunk contained his samples for whatever he was selling to the retailers. He was a middleman taking orders for his products. I do not know if the samples were hardware products or what. But early on he engaged the Miller brothers. He was going to case the town making sales, stay overnight, and move on.

He complained to the Miller brothers that Scotia was a much smaller place than he envisioned. He may have regretted getting off the train and not having the number of businesses to engage that he anticipated. The Miller brothers told him that what he saw was just the small part of Scotia located along the railroad tracks. The real city was located on a flat up the hill beyond the lower village part of the area. This larger portion of town would be found if he would walk up the street north that currently runs west of the swimming pool. The poor salesman took the bait and trekked up the hill where Harry Wright now lives only to find farmland stretching to the horizon. He carne back down the hill very upset. Back in the era the houses on top of the hill were quite large for their day, such as the Stichler house. One could see the few houses on the hill looking up from below and think that there was more town beyond.

Jerry Starn .. March 2, 2009

Source: Scotia Public Library

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