Bits, spurs and feed

Campbell County’s pioneers did whatever it took to make it, but none was more versatile than John “Dutch” Henry Thar, whose family today packs the same work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit. Thar was born in 1878 in An Den Hausen, Germany, and was 8 when his mother died. After his father also took ill, he was sent to an uncle in Columbus, Neb., via a 21-day, $50 ocean voyage. Henry was shuffled back to Germany when his father died and then shipped to Columbus yet again. At 13, he helped drive an oxen team 360 miles with freight bound for Chadron, Neb., then simply walked on to Cheyenne (a distance of more than 200 miles), in the fall 1891. Scrounging for jobs, young Henry spent time hanging around Granger Wagon Works. He couldn’t have known the three new Studebaker wagons under construction that spring would be loaded with dynamite in April and used by the invaders during the Johnson County War – or that one of the invaders would change the course of his life...more