Keith County Historical Society

03/20/2026

03/12/2026

New valences have been added to the parlor and some new artwork that was donated this winter. We are getting excited for opening weekend and for you to be able to come and enjoy all the new updates and additions at the Mansion this summer.

03/11/2026

📣The Nebraska State Preservation Office is pleased to announce that the City of Ogallala has been designated as a Certified Local Government (CLG) by the National Park Service.

Being a CLG means Ogallala has chosen to promote preservation-related projects such as long-range planning, educational programming, and heritage tourism. While working on becoming a CLG, Ogallala worked on planning activities to locally recognize historic places important to the community.

The CLG program is open to villages, cities, and counties of all sizes. One benefit of the program is through annual matching grants that help CLG complete preservation-related projects that are important to them.

Nebraska’s other Certified Local Governments are Auburn, Crete, Fairbury, Hebron, Lincoln, North Platte, Omaha, Plattsmouth, Red Cloud, Sidney, and Neligh.

For more information or to learn how to become a Certified Local Government, contact Kelli Bacon, Certified Local Government Coordinator at 402-540-5847 or [email protected].

📷: Mansion on the Hill Museum in Ogallala.

03/11/2026

We had so much fun hosting the 1st grade class!

03/05/2026

We are excited to host the Ogallala Public Schools first-grade class for a field trip on Monday! We have the dining room table set for spring!

02/07/2026

Day two of display making brings us to the original railings from the Courthouse, built in 1888. We have several that have been in attic storage, and it was time to bring them down. Art Anderson saved an original insulator from the telegraph in Ogallala. The KCHS has been the owner of these since the 1960s. So, it's fun to bring them back. Finally, I rediscovered a box in the attic relating to the Women's Relief Corps and the Grand Army of the Republic chapters in Ogallala. ❤️

02/06/2026

So many new displays are being crafted at the Mansion, like this Veterans display!

02/06/2026

Completing the servant’s outfit on display in the servants quarters on the third floor.

02/06/2026

Winter project at the Mansion. Several pieces have been pulled from storage and a few other items from former hotels here in Ogallala to display for the upcoming 2026 season. The door is from the Scott's Hotel, once located where Buenz Drug sits. The Searle Hotel artifacts were collected during a visit to the former hotel downtown. The tin is from the ceiling in the old Searle Hotel, placed on the ceiling during Doc Arrowsmith's time in the building, which was an undertaker's chapel. The matchboxes are from the Kate's Motel. The mailboxes are from the original post office in Ogallala.

01/27/2026

Elizabeth Ware (Carroll) was born November 7, 1862, in Port Huron, Michigan. As a girl she came west to Ogallala with her mother, Margaret, and her two brothers, Patrick and John Carroll. The Carrolls immigrating from Ireland to Canada, then to Michigan, and finally to Keith County—before they became part of Ogallala’s earliest community.

By about sixteen, Lizzie was working for Louis Aufdengarten in his Ogallala supply store. She was trusted with the key to what was remembered as the first safe in Ogallala—an unusual responsibility for someone so young. Aufdengarten may have felt a young woman would be less likely to be threatened by cowboys looking to rob the store, and that her presence offered a layer of protection as well as trust.

Lizzie went on to do public work in a town that badly needed capable people. She sorted mail as postmaster. She then took over for a seven-month term and was paid $125 a month to teach in Ogallala’s first school. This was good pay for the time, and a reflection of how difficult it could be to recruit teachers to this area.

Her husband, James William Ware, was born in Montgomery, Missouri, in 1848 and came to Keith County in 1877. He entered into a partnership with his brother-in-law, W.A. Paxton Sr., and became foreman at the Ogallala Land and Cattle Company located near oresent day Keystone Nebraska. James was also a talented carpenter who built several houses in Ogallala. He was remembered, too, for planting many of the town’s early trees, hauling water from the river to keep them alive. The Wares’ home stood along Railroad Street, near where the overpass is today.

James and Lizzie married in Denver in April of 1886 and later moved to Blair, Nebraska. Their son, Paxton Ware, was born January 10, 1887. Paxton died January 18, 1919, and James followed a few months later in May of 1919. Lizzie lived on until November 8, 1935.

The Carroll family also played a role in the early Catholic life of the community, helping establish St. Luke’s in Ogallala. Before the town had a local church community of its own, a priest would typically travel in from Sidney, Nebraska. Patrick Carroll’s story ended early. After buying a house and running for county treasurer around 1878, he died before he could assume office in December of 1879. He was first buried at Boot Hill, but was later moved to rest beside his mother, Margaret and John , in the Catholic section of the “new” Ogallala Cemetery west of town. Lizzie died at St. Mary’s Hospital in North Platte in 1935 buried with her husband and son at Holy Cross Cemetery in Blair, Nebraska.

(Lizzie Carroll Ware, Carroll Family marker, Ware Family marker)

By Tomás England

01/25/2026

Martin DePriest was born in Alabama in February of 1853 and died in Ogallala on August 29, 1919. Before ever setting foot in Keith County, he served with the Texas Rangers. In 1877, he came north on a trail drive along the Texas Trail and decided to stay in Ogallala.

In 1878, Depriest was elected sheriff, serving five terms. Many residents believed he would be effective because, unlike Joseph Hughes, DePriest was from Alabama, and Texas cowboys were more likely to respect a fellow Southerner. He was not known for being quick with a gun. Instead, he built a reputation for being no nonsense and for talking drunken cowboys out of poor decisions before situations turned violent. Tall and wiry, he understood how to handle the cattlemen who flooded Ogallala during the trail years. Joseph Hughes served as his deputy, and together the two men helped bring law and order to a town known as the Gommorah of the cowtowns. DePriest was also a close friend of Walter Haythorn.

As sheriff, DePriest earned a $500 salary in addition to legal fees. While living in Ogallala, he married Louisa Thompson, and they had two daughters. He also built a life in business, opening a livery stable and later partnering in a saloon called the White Elephant Saloon. The marriage to Louisa ended in divorce. DePriest later remarried Nellie Mills and homesteaded on a farm south of Ogallala on land that would eventually become part of Perkins County. After his time in office, he moved his saloon to Railroad Street. He eventually joined an electrical union company in Denver, and even after leaving, he returned to Ogallala and helped wire some of the town’s earliest homes. He eventually settled back in Ogallala where he died at his home under the care of his daughter.
(Martin and his first wife Louisa)

By Tomás England

01/24/2026

Joseph Hughes, also known as “Buffalo Joe Hughes,” was born in Indiana on August 22, 1845. He later made his way to Iowa, and on November 7, 1867, he married Elizabeth Ann Southard in Knoxville, Iowa. Elizabeth was born May 12, 1850, and passed away August 25, 1940, at the age of 91.

By about 1870, Hughes had reached the Ogallala area, working as a trapper and buffalo hunter, and earning the nickname that followed him for life. He grew to like the country and, in 1873, claimed a homestead near Roscoe, close to the river, where he built a small cabin. He returned for Elizabeth and their first child. Elizabeth also brought her brother-in-law, Jasper Southard, to settle in the area.

When Keith County was organized in 1873, steady law enforcement was difficult, and sheriffs often served short terms. Hughes became an exception and one of the most stable and trusted officers Keith County and Ogallala had seen in its early years. Early on, his work would have placed him in a small shack connected to the jail on the north side of the railroad tracks, though his homestead and daily life were closely tied to the Roscoe area. Over time, he served as sheriff, deputy sheriff, coroner, precinct assessor, jailer, and courthouse janitor. Like many early settlers, he also took on whatever work was needed, including digging wells for local homes. One of his biggest challenges as sheriff was cultural as much as legal. In the years after the Civil War, Texas cowboys frequently came north through the region, and some resisted taking orders from a sheriff who had been born in the Northern states. Keeping the peace in a cattle town was not easy.

Joe and Elizabeth had five children. Their first son, William Wright Hughes, was born August 30, 1869, in Marysville, Iowa, and was four years old when he moved with his parents to the homestead; he later died in Ogallala on November 29, 1934. Selden T. Hughes was born in July 1875 at the Roscoe homestead. Their third son, Andrew Jackson Hughes, was born April 1, 1878, at the Roscoe homestead and died September 2, 1963. The couple’s only daughter, Evalina was born sometime between 1876 and 1880. Tragically, Eva died in a household accident when a falling timber struck her, and she was buried at Boot Hill on August 8, 1884. Their youngest son, Joseph Hughes Jr., was born in November 1886, most likely at Roscoe.

Joseph Hughes died March 4, 1915, in Omaha and was buried in Ogallala, remembered even down to the detail of a misspelling on his grave marker. Elizabeth outlived him by twenty-five years. In later years, the family also helped raise a granddaughter, Eva, the daughter of Andrew, who died at the age of 55. Jasper was killed in 1880 and buried on Boot Hill. There is no reference that him or Eva were ever removed from the hill.

(Elizabeth, Seldon, William, Andrew, Joe Hughes)

By Tomás England