These first three settlers all took land on the Battle Creek where water was available and where fine timber was growing unhampered since God created it. This timber consisted of buroak, red and white elm, hackberry, cottonwood, and ash.

Many of the first homes were dugouts, soddies, or log cabins. Then came the first saw mills to make slab boards of the native timber. The saw mill consisted of one man standing in a dug pit to wield one end of a two man saw on its downward course and the other man above drawing the saw upward.

The settlers made their first furniture, tables, benches, cupboards, and bedsteads from these slabs.

As stated, it is known that among the first settlers on the Battle Creek, the lady our older people knew as Rosina Lucht, came with her first husband, Michael Ketterman, from Germany in early spring of 1867, and settled near the others aforementioned. Records show that Rosina Ketterman proved up on the homestead, the NW1/4 of Section 12, Township 22, Range 3.

This is the farm now owned by Martin Prauner. Mr. Prauner says that there are three depressions in the side of a knoll a little way from the creek where the Kettermans first had their dugouts for their home and shelter for their produce and stock.

The westernmost settlement having transportation at that time was West Point and from there the pioneer who had his or her own means of transportation was fortunate as some people had to shoulder and carry their few belongings of clothing, bedding, tools, and implements, and seed to grow food. Even a cart on which they could load their meager necessities was a luxury.

Misfortune soon overtook the young Ketterman couple. In the winter of 1867-1868, settlers from what is now Fairview Precinct, on a wood gathering mission to the Battle Creek, stopped at the Ketterman "dugout," finding the husband dead, the wife and their baby seriously ill. These good people took the mother and baby back to their homesteads to nurture Rosina and her baby back to health, but the baby died a few years later. This baby was without a doubt the first white child born in the area.

Word of Rosina's misfortune was sent to Germany which brought her brothers Carl and John Praeuner to America in the spring of 1869. They had been instructed to come to Columbus, which was then the nearest point for transportation, and from there they walked to the homestead of their sister Rosina. They were told in letters to watch for a black dog and actually found Rosina and the dog coming to meet them. This was in the spring of 1869. Rosina later married John Lucht in 1870. Mr. Lucht came to Nebraska in 1869 from Missouri with John Tiedgen. Rosina's descendants are well known, as are also the descendants of Carl and John Praeuner. To avert mixup in delivery of mail in later years, the John Praeuner family altered the spelling of their name to Prauner.

The Praeuners homesteaded, Carl on the SE1/4 of Section 1

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