About Us:

Gateway of the Northern Plains; that was Ogallala from 1870 to 1885. Hard-bitten Wyoming and Montana cattleman met in Ogallala's hotel and saloons with Texas Cattle kings and bargained over cattle prices. Gold flowed freely across the table, liquor across the bar, and occasionally blood across the floor as a bullet brought some unlucky cowhand to his death on the floorboards of "Tuck's Saloon."

By 1876, Ogallala had changed from its infant days in1868. The stores were all south of the railroad tracks. The stores fronted what was called Railroad Street. Aufdengarten's general store was on the corner of the intersection of this street and the trail leading south to the Platte River. Along this trail extended the rest of the town.

The military campaign carried out by General Crook and Colonel Miles during the fall and winter of 1876 brought an end to the Indian troubles in this part of the territory. These campaigns made sure that the Sioux Indians would be confined to their reservations.

By 1880, Ogallala consisted of one courthouse, on school, one hotel, two dwelling houses, and twenty- five permanent residents. The tempo of living in early Ogallala changed with the seasons. During the months of winter and early spring life was drab and dreary. Shortly after the first of June the town began to hum with activity as the first Texas trail herds started to arrive. During the three summer months business boomed -ten to twelve herds, each of two thousand five hundred head could be located south of town. The presence of a hundred or more trail hands taxed the facilities of Ogallala. Sleeping rooms and meals were hard to find when the trail hands were in town.

Ogallala received its name from the OGALA Sioux Indian tribe. The Indians spelled the name Ogala and they pronounced it Oklada. The word means "scatter," or "to scatter one's own." Ogallala has been spelled in a variety of ways such as Ogallalah, Ogallalla, and the present spelling OGALLALA.