Compendium of History, Reminiscence and Biography of Western Nebraska
containing a history of the state of Nebraska…
by Alden Publishing Company, 1909

This is the standard biographical directory for the Nebraska Panhandle at the start of the twentieth century. It opens with a short account of the state’s early exploration, Indian history, and territorial development, then runs biographical sketches of hundreds of western Nebraska settlers — their life work, family, and pioneer experience. The sketches begin around page 123 and fill most of the volume. The final portrait plates include the Osborne residents of Morrill County and the Nelson residents of Cheyenne County.

Researchers use it for names, marriages, and homesteads that do not appear in courthouse indexes. It is the same class of book as the later Curtis Media county volumes: paid family sketches, not a courthouse record. A 1912 Alden Compendium of Nebraska is a different book.