CATRON, EDMUN ENOCH

by Frances Spradling Blackburn

Entry F67 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

Edmun Enoch Catron 1861-1926.

It was in the 1890's that Edmun Enoch
Catron first came to Mullen. Ed was a
rancher and he knew every part of the
western plains. He was the only son in a
family of thirteen and was born in Falls City,
Nebraska on Dec. 3, 1861.

He married Jane (Jennie) Ellen Horseley
Johnson in Lander, Wyoming, in 1893. Often
he rode 25 miles one way on horseback to see
her. She was a school teacher.

This was the time that worried ranchmen
were vigorously urging passage of a lease law,
or any kind of a law that would give them
legal right to the range they used. Cattle
roamed everywhere to graze and anyone that
could round them up could claim them.
There were bitter fights over unbranded
cattle.

Hoping to discourage settlement of his
range while the lease law ground its way
through the Washington mill, R.M. Allen, the
British Manager of the 101 imported a
gunman who went by the name of Kid White.
A big, good looking fellow, he wore fancy
tailor-made clothes, was fast with a gun, and
soon became known in the little towns and
settler's shacks as "the 101 killer".

Ed, a little bolder than most, moved in on
101 range anyway and picked out a choice
quarter four miles north of Mullen. White,
wearing two guns rode over and advised him
to pull out before sundown. Ed went into
Mullen and called on authorities to protect
him. Sheriff Lawrence, saloon keeper Fred
Troop, and two other men drove out in a
livery rig to arrest White, who lived on a claim
he had taken in another section of 101 range.

Coming in from behind the shack, they
took the gunman by surprise, disarmed him
and told him they were taking him in for
threatening a settler. Moments later White
turned the tables, threw down on the four
with a rifle, then took their guns and marched
them back to town ahead of the rig. At the
courthouse he turned them over to the other
county officials, with a warning not to bother
him any more else they'd be hauled back to
town next time.

As a result of this Ed filed a claim in
Garden County and settled clear of 101 range.
It's interesting to note that Kid White later
became a good friend of the Catrons.

It was in Duel County on Aug. 30, 1895,
that their daughter Cherry Edna was born,
to he and Jane.

Early in 1900 Ed and Jennie, Edna and his
mother Harriet Jane Miller Catron returned
to Mullen, taking up residence in Evergreen
Hotel. Their first permanent home was 1/2
mile west of Mullen on the south side of the
railroad. It was here that Ed built corrals and
his mother tended her large vegetable garden.
Ed was especially proud of his fine well. Edna
remembered living in this little two bedroom
cottage. She slept in the same bed with her
grandmother on a feather mattress.

On June 19, 1902, James Matthew was
born; Russell Edmun October 30, 1905; Paul
Fletcher May 7, 1907. It was on March 18,
1908 that Ed's mother, Harriet died in the
same little house. On April 20, 1906 James
Matthew died of pneumonia; on May 29, 1909
Paul Fletcher died of Scarlet Fever, and on
June 1, 1909 Russell Edmun died of Scarlet
Fever. At the time Scarlet Fever was a
dreaded disease for which there was no
known cure, nor was it known how it was
contracted. A family south of Mullen whose
children were sick with this disease were
being treated by Dr. Adams. On his way home
he would stop at the Catrons to see how Edna
was, as she had been sick with tonsillitis. One
day on his visit, Edna showed him her feet
and hands which were peeling. When Doc
Adams saw these he told Jennie to keep the
little boys away as Edna had Scarlet Fever.
It was too late, the little boys had been
exposed and contracted the disease and died
two days apart. It was suspected that the
fever was carried by Doc Adams from the
family south to the Catron's. Residents of
Mullen were so frightened of the disease that
the funeral procession was directed to detour
around town to the cemetery.

Their next home was the first house west
of the old Methodist Church. It was said to
be the finest home in Mullen at the time and
it was here that Kenneth Eugene was born
September 29, 1910 and Jack Delos, June 24,
1913.

Ed Catron bought and sold much of
Sandhills land at various times. He often said
that 25 cents per acre was too much for some.
His last endeavor was a partnership with Bill
Gruenig. The "North Ranch" in Cherry
County was their project, a ranch of some
thousands of acres of virgin meadows, pas-
tures, lakes and streams. Kenneth remem-
bers cutting hay as high as the horses backs.
Ed built a big house with root cellar and milk
house for Jennie, and of course a well, a
handsome barn and corrals to house his
animals and their feed. During WWI Ed
bought 1500 steers and fattened them for
market. Shipment was ready when President
Wilson requested ranchers to hold their stock
and he would guarantee that prices would
remain constant. WWI ended, the market
dropped and Ed lost a fortune on his
marketable steers.

Telephones were just beginning to reach
into country homes run by batteries. Auto-
mobiles were also becoming fashionable. Ed
said personally he'd never own one of the
contraptions. Due to a neighbor, down the
line, using the battery to start their car,
Jennie could not call for help when Ed had
a heart attack. He died at North Platte in
1926 at 65 yrs. and was buried in the Mullen
Cedarview Cemetery beside his mother and
three sons.

Soon Jennie realized it was impossible to
operate their large ranch alone, so she and her
two young sons moved to a place called "the
camp" north of Mullen. It had a log house,
corrals, barns and chicken house. Water was
carried from a well serviced by a pitcher
pump by the river where the stock watered.
The boys built a house upstream on the south
fork of the Middle Loup River north of Hecla.
They operated this ranch until 1937, when
the ranch was sold and Jennie took her boys,
daughter and granddaughter Harriet to
California. After several years she returned
to Nebraska and lived with Jack until her
death in 1936 in North Platte.