Personal Property Taxes

– A state institution until the Tiemann Administration. (1959??)
For a short time we had no state tax. A ballot issue eliminated personal property taxes in November and the Unicameral did not meet until January to address the issue of a sales tax. Real estate property taxes are local.

Property tax records – from 1870s –

Books which can be read from the back as well as the front – not a new idea.

Cedar Township – 1877

Real Estate: James M Treichler, 160 acres, valued at $120
Union Pacific Railroad, 640 acres, valued at $640

Personal Property:
14 residents with personal property valued from 31-532.50
    Horses 3/60, 2/75, 3/100, 2/50, 2/70, 2/80
            20, 37.5, 33, 25, 35, 40 (range 20-40)
    (No oxen)

    Mules 2/125 – 62.5

    Cattle 14/200, 5/70, 20/80, 10/125, 1/20, 3/40, 1/20, 4/40, 8/90, 10/180
            14.28 14 4 12.5 20 13.33 20 10 11 18 (range 4-20)

    Swine ½, 3/2, ½, 2/4, 2/3, 2/2, 2/23
            2 .66 2 2 1.50 1 11.50 (range .66 to 11.50)

    Sheep 31/38 - 1.22
    Carriages 30, 25, 35, 20, 20, 25, 10, 20, 40 (range 10-40)
    Furniture15, 100, 150,
    Other 197, 194.5, 58, 128, 17, 98.5, 90, 432.5, 192, 113.75, 31, 43, 125.75, 80.25
    Range l7 – 432.5
    Dogs 9 of 14 residents

(Personal property 31 other, no animals, no carriages, not even a dog. He left 1878)

Buffalo County Communities

Majors never was a town or even a village, rather it was a community of people in Cedar Township southwest of Ravenna. There was a church and cemetery located in the northeast quarter of Section 15, a school, and a post office all in the area but not all grouped together in one location.

The church (Presbyterian) was moved away long ago but the cemetery remains. In fact, that’s all that remains. Both the school (Dist 20) and the post office have closed.

Poole is located south of Ravenna, three miles north and one east of the Majors cemetery. It was once incorporated as a village, but has dropped that incorporation. It also went by the name Poole Siding because a branch of the railroad passed through there and a lot of cattle were shipped to market from there.

Today a few houses remain that, with the surrounding farms, make up the Poole community. The railroad is gone, as is the post office. The school district has consolidated with Ravenna although the school building still stands.

Sartoria, up in the northwest corner of the county, near the Sherman County line, is another town that did not develop because the railroad never got there. The tracks had been laid as far as Pleasanton from Ravenna and the roadbed was graded from Pleasanton to Sartoria, but the tracks were never laid. The town had a post office, school, several professional offices and retail businesses including a general store. There was even a newspaper. While the village continued to exist and serve the community until the 1920’s, it did not grow and with the coming of the automobile, it just faded away.

Armada and Stanley moved when the Kearney and Black Hills Railroad was built to become Miller and Amherst. Kearney, of course, was founded because of the railroad.