As many of the early settlers in the area north of Bethune (still known as "The Settlement") came from southern Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a brief background sketch of these Germans from Russia may be helpful.

    In 1763 Catherine the Great, a German born princess who ruled Russia as Czarina from 1762 to 1796, initiated an era of German colonization of southern Russia along the Volga and Dnieper Rivers and around the Black Sea.  Lavish promises were made by the Russian government to German craftsmen and farmers, including free land, initial subsidies, and important guarantees of rights of local government, freedom of religion, and exemption from military service.  Many Germans were induced to "homestead" in Russia by these promises and by the desire to leave the areas devastated by war in Europe.

    In 1817 one such family, the Adolf Family, emigrated from West Prussia to Bessarabia as part of this resettlement.  They settled in the new town of Briene, sharing in the communal life of these German towns, where everyone lived in the village which centered around the Lutheran Church and School, plying their trades and working small fields in the surrounding countryside, as they had in Germany.  This "communal" feature of German rural life, carried into Russia and then into the United States, marked the Germans from Russia as "clannish" but was really part of a centuries old culture.  Life on the isolated homesteads of the American prairies was a real hardship for many of the Germans from Russia, accustomed as they were to shared village life.

    Beginning in 1871, a series of government actions under Czar Alexander II began to affect the German-speaking colonies in Russia in many far-reaching ways.  The acts were part of the "russification" or forced absorption of foreign minorities into the Russian culture.  Local government was abolished in the German-speaking areas in 1871 and in the autumn of 1874 the Russian army began 'drafting' young men from the German colonies.  The loss of these important guarantees, which the Germans had received when they first settled in Russia a century before, triggered a slow but increasing flow of German families and young men eligible for army service to leave Russia for North and South America.  This movement increased rapidly in the 1880's as the promise of abundant free lands available overseas drew more and more Germans out of Russia.  The new wave of emigration continued until the First World War in 1914 and brought many thousands of Germans from Russia to the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina.

    August Adolf was one of the young men caught up in this great westward wave of emigration.  Married in 1884 to Katherine Richter, they left Russia in 1888 with their two children, Daniel and Katherine ("Katie"), following the tracks of other Germans from Russia coming to the American West.  They settled briefly in Scotland, South Dakota, (one of the "jumping off" points for newly arrived immigrants), but moved on quickly to the prairies of the 14 year-old state of Colorado.  Arriving in Burlington in March of 1890, August Adolf and his family, together with a few other Germans from Russia, settled north of Bethune, near other German families from Russia, among whom were the Doblers, Strobels, Schaals and Baltzers.

    Their first homes were dug-outs, carved into hillsides with planks, covered with sod, serving as the roof.  Later, adobe houses were built which were much better than the sod houses most of the other early settlers had.
On May 8, 1890, a son, August William Adolf, was born.  He was the first baby to be born in "The Settlement" and, was the first registered male birth in the newly-incorporated Kit Carson County.  An often-repeated family story is that when August Adolf arrived home from the Republican River, where the settlers had to go to get water before the first wells were dug, and learned that his son was born, in the excitement the horses bolted, overturning the water barrels.  It was two days before August could safely leave his wife and new son to go for more water, and so the baby was a few days old before he could have his first bath!

    August Adolf was a shoemaker by trade in Russia and so beside caring for his homestead and his growing family, he walked to Burlington - approximately 15 miles across the prairie - to make and repair shoes and boots, earning 25 cents a day.  His wife, Katherine, was one of the first mid-wives in the area.  She and "Grandma" Yale, another of the early mid-wives, delivered many of the children born in those years, and sometimes assisted Dr. C. Gilette, one of the first medical doctors in Kit Carson County, with practical nursing.

    There were no buffalo left in Kit Carson County when these first German settlers arrived, but there were antelope to supplement the meager meat supply.  The only gun in "The Settlement" was a 33-gauge rifle, owned by Gottlieb Bauder, which was shared by the people of "the Settlement," as were their other tools and their skills.  Gradually, cattle herds were built up and more ground broken for growing grain and feed.  Earlier Germans from Russia had brought with them a hardy winter wheat, well-adapted to the cold, dry winters of the prairies.  It was the introduction of this winter wheat which opened much of the "high plains" to wheat production. (An unwelcome "hitch-hiker" was the Russian thistle, which has become a kind of "trademark" of the American West: the tumbleweed!)

    In 1892 August Adolf was able to arrange for his father and mother, Christian and Friederika Adolf, together with their children, Frederika, Andrew, and Katherina, to come to the United States.  Christian and his family settled near Denver when they first arrived; he and Andrew worked in the smelters.  Later, they came to "The Settlement," where Christian practiced his trade of blacksmithing.  In 1896, Frederika Adolf married the widower, Franz Kramer, raising his children, Frank, Marie, Christine, Margaretha, and Rosie, as well as their own children in time: Christian, William, Katherina (Jurgens), Frederika, Amelia (Stahlecker) and Pauline (Kloeckner).

    In 1908 the last of Christian and Friederika's five children came to the United States.  Wilhelm and his wife Margaretha (Buchfink) came to Colorado from Michaelsfeld in Bessarabia.  He was a skilled wagon-maker by trade, but had to sell his tools for passage money for the family.  Their children are: Margaret (Meyer), Gottlieb, William, Christina (Leasing), Mary (Kramer) Carl, John, Christian, Nettie (Hasart), and Frieda (Weisshaar).

    Andrew Adolf married Margaretha (Schlickenmayer) and raised nine children in "The Settlement": Jacob, Karolina (Golle), William, John S., Emanuel, Fred, David, Frieda (Gramm), Martha (Weiss), and Gotthilf.

    The children of August and Katherina Adolf are: Daniel (who died in a diptheria epidemic in 1892), Katherina ("Katie") (Wahl), August ("A.W."), Gustaf, Christian, Luella (Holwegner), Anna (Hasart), and Daniel Jacob.

    From these four children of Christian and Friederika: Frederika, August, Wilhelm, and Andrew, are descended many of the residents of eastern Kit Carson County, many of them still living in "The Settlement" north of Bethune.