The most closely contested election ever held in Jefferson county was that in 1879 on the question of voting bonds to the Burlington and Missouri railroad to secure the passing through Fairbury of the line being built east from Red Cloud. The proposition was virtually to indirectly relieve the road from taxation for ten years. As bonding propositions were submitted in those days this was considered a very liberal one, as the taxes were supposed to offset the bonds and if the road was not built there would be neither bonds nor taxes. It required a two-thirds vote to carry the bonds and as the northern and southern portions of the county were always jealous of Fairbury the contest was a bitter one. Some of the stakes of the old Brownville & Ft. Kearny survey were yet standing and some still hoped that road would be built. The people of Fairbury resorted to all known devices to gain votes, some of which have not yet been revealed. It was long before the days of the Australian ballot and more or less bogus tickets were in circulation at every election. On this occasion a few tickets containing a double negative were secretly circulated in a precinct bitterly opposed to the bonds. Several of these were found in the ballot box and of course rejected, which left on the face of the returns a majority of one in favor of the bonds. It has always been believed that Fairbury lost the road because the officials of the road, who also comprised the townsite company, thought they could make more by building up new towns of their own. [Illustration: MONUMENT ON THE OREGON TRAIL, THREE MILES NORTH OF FAIRBURY Erected by Quivira Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. Dedicated October 29, 1912. Cost $200] EARLY DAYS OF FAIRBURY AND JEFFERSON COUNTY BY GEORGE W. HANSEN The first white settler in what is now Jefferson county was Daniel Patterson, who established a ranch in 1856 where the Overland, or Oregon trail crosses the Big Sandy. Newton Glenn located the same year at the trail crossing on Rock creek. The first government survey of land in this county was made in 1857, and the plat and field notes show the location of "Patterson's Trading Post" on the southeast quarter of section 16, town 3 north, range 1 east.