In November of 1934, Nuckolls County newspapers reported workers associated with the Civilian Conservation Corps Camp located on the Nuckolls County Fairgrounds were building a dam on the Paul Huskinson farm northwest of the Ideal Cement Company plant.
The new dam was on the site of a previous dam built sometime before 1885 on what was then part of the Superior Cattle Company ranch.
A faulty spillway was blamed for the original dam washing out during the heavy rains of 1915. The new dam was to have an improved concrete spillway.
The original dam was probably part of the cattle company’s tourism promotion. The ranch had cabins and other amenities for visitors and C.E. Adams, a cattle company principal, was instrumental in the development of Superior’s Lincoln Park. Before the collapse of his financial empire, he planned to make Lincoln Park a stop off place for travelers riding the Burlington mainline railroad through Superior. Park developments included a miniature golf course, small zoo and was supposedly getting several train carloads of Civil War ordinance to display.
John Huskinson, Paul’s son, remembers being raised on the farm.
One of his earliest memories is of the CCC dam project. The workers laid 2x12 planks on the pasture grass so as not to disturb the native grass when driving trucks to the construction site. Included in the project was the afore mentioned concrete spillway. A 20-acre lake formed behind the dam. When the first spillway failed, there was a deep water hole left at the bottom of the spillway.
John’s dad made water wings for Paul from Karo syrup pails. To make the wings, the bails from two syrup pails were tied together. John said the wings were so uncomfortable that he was soon dog paddling. He believes the dog paddling saved his life when he was washed down stream in a rain storm.
When John visited the farm in 2011, he found the creek was deeply eroded and the concrete pieces from the failed spillway were still there. That year, he walked from the farm house up the creek and found the CCC dam was still in a good condition,
Before the original dam failed, it held a 20 acre lake. The lake area soon developed into a willow forest. His father used some of the willows for fence posts. The willows sprouted and became trees.
The lake was a popular fishing lake and he remembers reading a story in a prior issue of a Superior newspaper about fish being caught there and being relocated to other ponds.
He recalls the day a large 1920s vintage touring car got stuck in the mud while the driver was trying to reach the lake. His father used a team of mules to pull the automobile out of the mud.
When John was 19, he went up the creek on a duck hunting excursion. Near a cut bank with trees on top, he spied a large coyote on top of the bank. He shot and weighed the coyote. As it weighed 63 pounds, he concluded it was a hybrid.
John said today he is not proud of killing the coyote but at that time there was a bounty on coyotes and he thought it the thing to do.
Another time, he was with his dad, a team and wagon going to replace a pasture flood gate that had washed out. They found a coyote den with a bitch and nine pups which they killed.
Since being asked if he remembered the CCC workers building the dam, John Huskinson has shared many additional memories about his time on the ranch.
Tuesday he wrote telling us of remembering Elizabeth Godsey who lived across the road from the Sunny Side one-room school. Elizabeth rode double with John on a pony called Dimples. They frequently rode together to check the pasture for newly born calves. The pasture had a large prickly pear cactus that was sometimes in bloom. He described the pasture as a natural history museum. There was a large prairie dog town and numerous buffalo wallows that were filled with water by the spring and summer rains.
There were numerous snakes including blue racers and bull snakes in the pasture. Once he encountered a small pit viper.
There were numerous wild flowers in the pasture including wild onions which the milk cows would sometimes eat. Ice cream produced from that milk would taste of the wild onions and could not be sold.
A Farmers Union cube truck visited the farm each week to pick up cream. At that time, Superior had two butter production plants and the Dodd’s ice and ice cream plant. The Dodd’s plant had a large machine that made ice cream. The plant also had frozen food lockers for rent.
Mrs. Huskinson rented one or more of the lockers and stored the meat which came from the annual beef and hog butchering. She had a large cast iron cauldron in the which the pork fat was rendered and the skin became cracklings. The lard was used to make laundry soap in the cauldron.
Reader Comments(0)