Doctor O. P. Baker first visited in this neighborhood with "Joe"
Shaub who, at that time was a buyer of grain on the Burlington
Railroad track. After visiting for some time the Doctor found it
necessary to go two miles out of town to the Willard Payne place to
eat and sleep. During that visit he bought a quarter section of land
one mile east of town, then went back to Morrison, Illinois, and
told the merchants there what he had seen around Exeter, and as a
result of the descriptions given regarding this country and its
possibilities of development; he sold five farms without their ever
coming to look at them.
In February of 1874 he built a house
on the farm he had bought, and a neighbor thought the country was
getting too thickly settled; so he sold his eighty acres and left
for the west. In September of that year he brought a party of 275
land seekers from Illinois, and although that was the grasshopper
year, he sold five farms in one day. Then again in September 1875 he
brought another party numbering 265 persons and succeeded in
locating 230 people within sixteen miles of Exeter.
The
Doctor advertised these Nebraska lands extensively, and though at
that time a nonresident, he did a great deal to help settle this
country. He moved here in 1880 and has made this his home ever
since, and being a Dentist he commenced practicing his profession
and did the first dentistry that was done in Exeter. He continued in
the business here about thirty-two years, when, owing to failing
eyesight, he sold out, having worked continuously in his profession
for forty-six years.
Pioneers of Fillmore and Adjoining Counties
Source: Pioneer Stories of the Pioneers of Fillmore and adjoining Counties, by G. R. McKeith, Press of Fillmore County News, Exeter, Nebraska, 1915
