boys entered Ed's saloon and wanted to bring their horses into the saloon too. A fight followed because there just wasn't room for horses inside. The cowboys ended up shooting at the marshal's feet and made him dance a jig. (Those TV scripts are more accurate than we realize!)

One Fourth of July, a local man was very drunk and the marshal wanted to put him in the local jail. The man's buxom wife gave the marshal a battle royal trying to save her husband from the tiny cage-like jail. She pulled the sleeves off of the marshal's shirt, much to his embarrassment.

There was a cultural side to Battle Creek too and it developed gradually under the leadership of various talented people. The Rodekohr name has always been associated with music and in early Battle Creek history the family played its part.

Otto Rodekohr writes, "When we arrived in Battle Creek there was no band. Louis, Edwin and Otto played stringed instruments by ear and caused interest among the people. A group of young boys, having heard us play, wanted to play too. So I taught them notes by making a huge scale and pinned it to the wall. They were taught as a class."

—Thelma Rodekohr

PIONEER DAYS
As experienced by the writer,
G. W. Haight, of Battle Creek, Nebraska

I was born in the same county my parents were, that of Yarmouth, Elgin County, Ontario, October 17, 1851. My father's parents were born in lower Canada, Baycanta, and those of my mother in Pennsylvania, being Pennsylvania Dutch. My father was a poor man, working out by the day to support a large family. When I was nine years of age, an uncle of mine came to our home asking to adopt one of my father's boys. I was the one chose, and did not see any of the family until three years later, as my uncle had settled in a new country and his farm being heavily timbered, I found plenty to do, clearing and fencing.

I continued with him until I was eighteen, when I began learning my trade, that of a mason. It required three years to learn, and I worked as a journeyman for two years longer. From then on I worked at my trade along with farming until the year '77 when the western fever struck me. With twenty-one dollars in my pocket, on the 12th day of March, I started for the west.

My last night was spent with a family named Patricks. My youngest brother married one of the girls and came west several years later. He met his death while felling a tree north of Battle Creek, seven years ago.

The first difficulty I met was at Wisner, Nebraska, that being the terminus of the railroad. I spent the night in a hotel, and after paying for my two meals and night's lodging, I had a one dollar bill in British money to go on, and my destination was the

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