I have read many diaries and letters from the past and I have came across the importance of community efforts to accomplish common goals together. That is how they stayed alive and made it. The nonconformist was soon swallowed up by nature, man, or beast. pre-civil war this was barn raising, gristing corn or wheat by hand and those type of community efforts to make it through the winter. Eventually there were mills and more people and with that came secure easy travel and they began to. Then is was off to a convention or where ever they wanted. In my area there were also horse races that would draw people for miles around to watch and gamble. They also tried to do the weddings and such while the people were already gathered for other events. While the original Fort Karney Nebraska was occupied by Missouri troops in 1846, they wrote about going to local get togethers and meeting the women while they were bored at the fort in the middle of nowhere. Whiskey at that time could only be purchased by one man in the area that became known as Hog Thief Bend on the Missouri River near Nebraska City.