CATRON, EDMUN ENOCH
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.