STORY OF J. R. RATEKIN; TELLS OF PIONEER DAYS
Lived at Singleton's Grove When Deer Were Plentiful—Farmer, Politican, Soldier, Business Man

When the aeroplane comes into practical use and we can take a real birdseye view from a point one-half mile straight up from Shenandoah, we shall see a varied landscape furrowed by innumerable, crooked streams lined with green foliage. We shall see this landscape thickly dotted with white farm homes in the midst of cultivated fields, and many churches and schools houses, the social centers of their neighborhoods; we shall look down upon twenty thousand people— active, industrious, prosperous, modern, in all they do and think; we shall see all roads leading to a beautiful little city, the commercial center of this circled vision from the clouds; and we shall exclaim, "What a splendid country it is!

How progressive and rich, possessing all the evidences and appliances of culture and education—all the material improvements of the age!"
This is the picture as it is in 1912, But turn back forty or fifty years to the pioneer days, and we have another picture quite in contrast with this of today but still full of interest because those pioneer days, that solitude of wild prairie grass and wooded streams, were the background for our beautiful picture of today. The pioneer men and women made possible the better conditions of today. Fortunately there are men and women still living who were here at the beginning and can tell us something of those early days. One of these is Col. J. R. Ratekin, who has ever been a conspicuous figure in the marvelous development of Page and Fremont counties. He came in 1867, when 22 years old. What impelled him and others like him to come to this wild and unsettled region? Did they dimly dream of the wealth that was to be here?   Mr. Ratekin was then young; his life was all before him and he was staking out his career. A new country offered him the opportunity to grow, to become. He was working for a large farmer and stock man in Illinois. Together they went into Missouri to buy cattle. Having secured 800 head, Mr. Ratekin was commissioned to bring 200 of them to Fremont county to feed. He remembers camping two miles west of Clarinda in the fall of 1867. The next camp was near Manti, then the greatest prospective city, except Sidney, in all this country. It was founded by the Mormons, dissenters from Brigham Young's migrating host. But the railroad has always been the determining factor in locating towns and Manti got left. At that time there was not a house between Manti and Porter's except that of Monroe Ayres. John Myer's father kept the stage station and post office at Manti. Settlers were far between. Enoch Thompson kept a hospitable pioneer stopping place on Walnut creek which Mrs. Thompson still owns, five miles north of Shenandoah, and his neighbors were Ed Miller, Newt Thompkins and Mr. Rice. Westward were the Ripleys, Highs and Clems. But probably the most prominent point was Singleton's Grove and the most widely known and most popular man was Uncle Jack Singleton. He had a nice family of boys and girls and the home was the social center as well as the resort or rendezvous for hunters from Sidney and other places. It was not uncommon to see half a dozen hunters come in each with a deer strung to the saddle horn. One winter Uncle Jack had over fifty deer hams in his smoke­house. He was one of the earliest, coming in 1842, and his son, John W., was the first white child to be born in Fremont county. It was a hospitable home to all pioneers. Young Ratekin was "in it", for he had the good judgment and the good looks to marry one of the daughters.

Curiously ferries were a necessary and convenient thing "them days." Bob Wauhob ran a ferry over the Nishna near the mouth of Walnut creek and another was kept by Geo. Belcher just northwest of Farragut. Bridges supplanted ferries and the rivers grew smaller. All old settlers say that there were ten times as much water here when they came as there is now. Some of the impassible swamps have become the best of farms.

Mr. Ratekin had been a farmer from boyhood and it was but natural that he should turn his attention to that
vocation. The rich soil of Fremont county invited him and he must have put into his work great industry,
judgment and careful management, for in three years of farming around Singleton's Grove he cleared $5,000, mostly in hogs. All freight -- dry goods, household goods, everything—was hauled from Sidney Landing, a point on the Missouri river just below Hamburg, which was a steamboat station. It has long since disappeared, and the river itself absconded one night and .by chang­ing its current it left a big chunk of Nebraska in Iowa. Sidney was then the most promising town in southwest Iowa. It was the outfitting point for emigrants and freight trains across the plains until Nebraska City monopolized that business. Mr. Ratekin describes Sidney as a rushing young city—trade coming there from a distance of fifteen miles and more, all directions.

In 1871 Mr. Ratekin became a traveling salesman for the Weir Plow company of Monmouth, Ill., and was on the road for three years. Meantime he had purchased 440 acres of raw land and put in all his vacation and all his spare time as well as all the money he saved into improving it, hauling the cottonwood lumber and posts from Hamburg and Anderson. He paid $7, 8 and $12 an acre for his land. In '69 he sold this and bought another tract just across the river northwest from town, paying $10 an acre for it.

When Mr. Ratekin first saw it, the spot where Shenandoah is was covered with tall grass and the land would not sell for $5 an acre. But he was here when our railroad was but a streak of dirt. He saw the first , house built and all the marvelous growth of the town since, and all the history have been his personal friends and associates. He has been something of a politician, too, a leader of his party. In 1884 he was a delegate from Iowa to the national democratic convention in Chicago which nominated Cleveland. He saw and heard the famous men of his party and shook hands with many of them, which he esteemed a great honor, but the immense jam, the noise and confusion of the convention proceedings rather disgusted him and he never cared to go again. But it gave him a pull by which he secured the appointment of postmaster of Shenandoah for four years. He filled the office to general satisfaction but resigned before his term expired and in the fall of '89 returned to his farm over the river, where he lived till he was appointed commandant of the soldiers' home at Marshalltown, which office he filled for four years.

Col. Ratekin is a native of Illinois. At a very youthful age he enlisted in the union army and enjoys the distinction of being a member of Col. Bob Ingersol's regiment. He says Ingersol was greatly liked by all for his fine personality and his genial ways, but he was too tender hearted to enforce military discipline, and then everybody knows that his fame does not rest on his record as a soldier.   Only a daring fighter can hope to win laurels in the army.

Col. Ratekin is still young, is still a worker, a voracious reader and a man of wide information.  He still
feels a deep interest in political affair but—no longer a partisan.