John and Matthew
Wagner
Two of the first homesteaders in the Creighton community were John
and Matthew Wagner, brothers. They came here, with a single yoke of
oxen constituting their entire property, within hours of the arrival
of the Bruce colony. They came here from Omaha, John Wagner worked
in Omaha's first packing plant. When they arrived Creighton
consisted of a sod shanty on the east side of the creek. It was in
the spring of 1871. With the team of oxen they brought here they
turned the first sod in this section of L'eau Qui Court (later Knox)
County, Nebraska.
To say the Wagner brothers endured the hardships of pioneer life is
to employ a trite phrase, but the fact remains they did just that.
Among their experiences were these: Walking to Pierce at night and
working the next day in the harvest field, their own crops having
been destroyed by grasshoppers . . . walking to West Point, end of
the railroad, and leading a milk cow back . . . crops trampled by
the texas herds driven north . . . face frozen in a blizzard . . .
the loss of many cattle in the blizzard of 1888. (The Creighton
News, June 21, 1934)
