Getting water was no easy task in those days. The Divide is a high, dry place, and many a creature has dried out and died in those areas — as the Bone Yard Waterhole attests. Billy Fred Klein lives out there, and he remembers seeing many a large skeleton of buffalo or other animals out there that succumbed to deadly thirst.

Ed had about 1,700 acres and was looking for horses and mules to raise. He met L.D. Bushong, a horse trader, who showed his stock. Along came his daughter, Lettie, a teenager, and Ed fell for her charms and married her. “Lettie always said that she not only got a ranch, but got to keep her horses, too,” Billy said.

This was the first (or last) waterhole, and that’s where Ed hauled his water from. Later, he partnered with a man named Lastikow, but Billy said things didn’t work out well. “They were going to drill wells for each other, but after they drilled the Lastikow well, they had a misunderstanding, and Ed had to drill his own well,” Billy said.

A huge 16-foot windmill still sits on the land as a testament to progress. Electricity did not come to that area until after WWII, and Billy said they still have the old kerosene lamps that he remembers provided light when he was a kid. On their homestead, there are two tall chimneys still standing near the barn, and just a short distance away a white frame house sits, which was built from all the timbers of the first house, Billy said. “Whenever they wanted to settle out here, the men would leave the women in town,” Billy said. “There were lots of rattlesnakes and no doctors or water or anything. The first thing they’d build was a large barn to shelter their animals, and later shearing pens. They’d live in one small part of the barn where the timber is tight to keep out the weather, and work in the other part. Later, after they built a house, the women would come up.”