NEBRASKA: 150 Years Told Through 93 Counties

NEBRASKA 150 YEARS TOLD THROUGH 93 COUNTIES DAVID HENDEE

NEBRASKA 150 YEARS TOLD THROUGH 93 COUNTIES DAVID HENDEE

NEBRASKA

150 YEARS TOLD THROUGH 93 COUNTIES

BY DAVID HENDEE

EDITOR DAN SULLIVAN

DESIGNER CHRISTINE ZUECK-WATKINS

EXECUTIVE EDITOR MIKE REILLY

PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER TERRY KROEGER

Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior consent of the publisher, the Omaha World-Herald.

Omaha World-Herald, 1314 Douglas St., Omaha, NE 68102-1811 First Edition ISBN: 978-0-692-79875-1 Printed by Walsworth Publishing Co., Marceline, MO

ABOVE: The sun rises on Chimney Rock near McGrew.

TITLE PAGE: Sandhill cranes head off for fields near Wood River.

ON THE COVER: The sun bursts behind the clouds over the North Platte River east of Bridgeport.

NEBRASKA’S 93 COUNTIES 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

ADAMS ANTELOPE ARTHUR BANNER BLAINE BOONE BOX BUTTE BOYD BROWN

20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46

BUFFALO BURT BUTLER CASS CEDAR CHASE CHERRY CHEYENNE CLAY COLFAX CUMING CUSTER DAKOTA DAWES

48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74

DAWSON DEUEL DIXON DODGE DOUGLAS DUNDY FILLMORE FRANKLIN FRONTIER FURNAS GAGE GARDEN GARFIELD GOSPER

76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100 102

GRANT GREELEY HALL HAMILTON HARLAN HAYES HITCHCOCK HOLT HOOKER HOWARD JEFFERSON JOHNSON KEARNEY KEITH

104 106 108 110 112 114 116 118 120 122 124 126 128 130

KEYA PAHA KIMBALL KNOX LANCASTER LINCOLN LOGAN LOUP MADISON MCPHERSON MERRICK MORRILL NANCE NEMAHA NUCKOLLS

132 134 136 138 140 142 144 146 148 150 152 154 156 158

OTOE PAWNEE PERKINS PHELPS PIERCE PLATTE POLK RED WILLOW RICHARDSON ROCK SALINE SARPY SAUNDERS SCOTTS BLUFF

160 162 164 166 168 170 172 174 176 178 180 182 184 186

SEWARD SHERIDAN SHERMAN SIOUX STANTON THAYER THOMAS THURSTON VALLEY WASHINGTON WAYNE WEBSTER WHEELER YORK

93 COUNTIES: THE STATE’S BUILDING BLOCKS THE CELEBRATION OF 150 YEARS of statehood in 2017 provides an opportunity to dust off history books and dig into archives to illustrate how a grassland in the middle of the continent came to be the 37th state in the Union.

Much has happened since March 1, 1867.

The World-Herald has chronicled Nebraska’s journey daily since the 1865 founding of the Omaha Daily Herald by George L. Miller. The newspaper grew along with the state in its early years. In 1885, Gilbert Hitchcock started the competing Omaha Daily World and in 1889 purchased the Herald, combining them to create The World-Herald.

In the 1930s, The World-Herald published a series of county-by-county historical drawings by staff artist Mike Parks titled, “Nebraska in the Making.” Subsequently published in booklet form, the drawings were described as an “early Nebraska picture history” reviewing “interesting events and facts connected with each of the state’s 93 counties.”

Parks pioneered the project to help his daughter with her grade-school study of Nebraska history.

A generation later, The World-Herald republished the popular illustrations in the newspaper’s Magazine of the Midlands to set the stage for Nebraska’s centennial in 1967.

As a junior high student in Sidney, Nebraska, I eagerly anticipated the feature each Sunday, faithfully clipping it from the newspaper and creating a miniature notebook. I later took $1.28 (postage and handling included) of my newspaper route earnings and ordered a compilation of the cartoon stories, retitled “Bygone Nebraska,” from The World-Herald.

Who could have imagined that a half-century later, I would be writing a book about Nebraska for the state’s sesquicentennial – and that it would affectionately mimic the county histories I clipped and saved?

Telling the state’s story through each of its 93 counties makes as much sense today as it did nearly 80 years ago with “Nebraska in the Making,” and many of Parks’ illustrations have been republished in this book.

Illustrations from Mike Parks’ booklet “Nebraska in the Making” (above) are featured in “Nebraska: 150 Years Told Through 93 Counties.” The Omaha Daily Herald was at the northwest corner of 13th and Douglas Streets (below), the same block occupied by The World-Herald today.

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County government predates statehood. The Territorial Legislature began establishing county boundaries in the mid-1850s and early 1860s, first along the Missouri River and then progressively west through the Panhandle.

It took 56 years from start to finish.

Despite the creation of county boundaries, it sometimes took a number of years before the county would be officially

David Hendee at the Glacier Creek Preserve in Douglas County, one of the nation’s largest tallgrass prairie restorations.

organized and its governmental body installed. Laws required a minimum of 200 inhabitants per county before an organizational election could be held. Some counties met this requirement almost immediately. Others needed several decades. Many counties were carved out of others. As areas of a larger county would become more densely inhabited, settlers in the area would petition for the separation and organization of a new county.

From Adams to York, there are stories behind their names. Sixty-nine of the 93 counties were named in honor of prominent individuals. The remaining 24 received their names from animals, landmarks, rivers, soil conditions, Indian tribes, counties in other states and the dreams and hopes early settlers had for where they settled.

While not all Nebraska villages and cities share identical origins, many have relatively similar stories.

Here’s the CliffsNotes version of the state’s 529 incorporated villages and cities: Plucky settlers claim patches of prairie and plow up the sod to start farms. Railroad company lays tracks.

Village springs up. Emigrants pour in. Village claims it should be county seat. Rival villages rise in challenge.

Midnight raid on disputed courthouse secures county records and seat of government. East half of village burns to the ground. Town rebuilds. West half burns to the ground. Town rebuilds. Rain follows the plow. Times are good.

Drought turns dreams to dust. Stout, hard-working children of the pioneers press on.

And they called it, “Nebraska: The Good Life.”

FOREWORD | V

Much has changed since the indigenous Indian tribes first encountered explorers, fur traders and the earliest settlers. The wakes of riverboats and the ruts of wagon wheels signaled a new landscape ahead as civilization rushed to create something new on the American frontier.

This is a Great Plains state with a character and geography that is Midwestern in the east and cowboys-and-ranches in the west.

Nebraska stretches westward from Iowa 430 miles to Wyoming, as the crow – rather, the western meadowlark – flies. It separates Kansas from South Dakota by 210 miles. At 77,358 square miles, it ranks 16th among the 50 states. Thirty-five American metropolitan areas have larger populations than Nebraska’s 1.9 million. So do 36 other states. There are seven Nebraska counties – Arthur, Banner, Blaine, Grant, McPherson, Sioux and Thomas – with densities of less than one person per square mile. Forty-one others

The western meadowlark, the state bird.

have less than 10 people per square mile. Douglas County, on the other hand, has a density of 1,574 residents per square mile.

You might think you know the state, but you never know when there will be a surprise around the corner.

Despite its reputation, Nebraska is not flat. Detour off Interstate 80 and out of the broad Platte Valley – the natural conduit west for emigrants on the overland trails – and the state unfolds in rolling hills cut with canyons and rocky escarpments.

It’s America’s outback.

This is neither a history book, nor a travel guide. Rather, it is a collection of some of the monumental moments and incidental episodes of the statesmen and scoundrels who came to this land – along with the American Indians who were, of course, already happily here.

Historic and contemporary photographs capture both the familiar and unfamiliar, and Parks’ drawings once again help portray days gone by. Taken together, it’s a leisurely tour along Nebraska’s byways, not a flyover glimpse.

Re-stake claims to Nebraska’s heritage – or discover it anew – by poking into the places from the oak-cloaked banks of the Missouri River to the pine-studded ridges of the Wildcat Hills.

After six decades of living and working in Nebraska – and four decades working for its largest daily newspaper – I’m no stranger to any corner of the state or to its history. Many of the hundreds of stories shared in this book come from past reporting for Anthony Earth performs the “fancy dance” outside Morrill Hall in Lincoln during the opening of an exhibit titled, “First Peoples of the Plains: Traditions Shaped by Land & Sky.”

The World-Herald over the years. And new reporting turned up some delightful surprises, such as White Horse Ranch in Boyd County, the Oak Ballroom in Colfax County and Charles H. Morrill’s retirement home in Polk County.

Tom Allan, my late colleague, said it best when asked for advice on where to go and what to see across Nebraska.

“Get lost!” he would reply. In other words, break out of your rut and discover the beauty and history of the state, the warm friendliness of its people and its genuine Western heritage.

See you out there.

David Hendee Omaha, Nebraska

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THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF

“BRIDGES: SHARING OUR PAST TO ENRICH THE FUTURE” NEBRASKA’S HISTORIC PLACES and architectural treasures were the focus of a statewide photography initiative sponsored by Hildegard Center for the Arts in preparation for the state’s 150th birthday. The call for entries, “Bridges: Sharing Our Past to Enrich the Future,” collected images from all 93 counties and named a winner for each county. The winning selections are featured in “Nebraska: 150 Years Told Through 93 Counties.”

The decision to feature architectural and historic treasures instead of landscapes was intentional, said Cathy Harrington of Lincoln, a board member of the sponsoring Hildegard Center for the Arts and the project chair.

“We know Nebraska has many beautiful natural features,” she said. “We wanted to highlight historic places and often-overlooked historical treasures in all counties.”

The Hildegard Center called for amateur and professional photographers from across Nebraska

to highlight locations that are on the National Register of Historic Places or are of personal or community significance. Nebraska has nearly 1,100 listings in the register, the nation’s inventory of properties deemed worthy of preservation. The register is maintained by the National Park Service and administered in the state by the Nebraska State Historical Society.

The Bridges photography effort, in partnership with the Nebraska Tourism Commission and Nebraska State Historical Society, drew more than 800 entries. “Each Nebraska community is unique, and historic places often identify a community’s character,” said Bob Puschendorf, the Nebraska State Historical Society’s associate director and deputy state historic preservation officer.

The jurors were photographer Joel Sartore of Lincoln, a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine; George Tuck, a photo journalism professor emeritus from the Univer-

sity of Nebraska-Lincoln; and photographers Bobbi and Steve Olson of Palmyra, who have traveled more than 250,000 miles in the last decade capturing images of Nebraska’s landscapes, people, communities, celebrations and history.

“Bridges: Sharing Our Past to Enrich the Future” was endorsed by the Nebraska 150 Commission as a “signature event.” In addition to being included in this book, winning photos are featured in a 2017 exhibit for the Nebraska 150 that includes stops in Omaha, Lincoln, Alliance, Norfolk, North Platte and Seward.

The Sesquicentennial Traveling Photo Exhibit is supported in part by Humanities Nebraska and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment and by statewide exhibit sponsors: the Nebraska Sesquicentennial Commission, Nebraska Tourism Commission, the Ethel S. Abbott Charitable Foundation and Johnson Hardware Company.

A list of Nebraska places in the national register can be found at www.nebraskahistory.org.

BRIDGES PHOTO SELECTION ABOUT HILDEGARD CENTER FOR THE ARTS Hildegard Center for the Arts is a nonprofit arts organization founded in 2009 with a mission “to unite people of all beliefs, cultures and traditions to inspire humanity through the arts.”

The Hildegard Center, with office headquarters at Lincoln’s Old City Hall at 920 O Street, advances its efforts through partnerships with organizations and communities.

The photo call and Sesquicentennial Traveling Photo Exhibit are part of the center’s initiative called “Bridges” – using the arts and humanities to connect people of all ages and walks of life.

OMAHA’S DURHAM MUSEUM | BY GARY ANDREWS Omaha’s Union Station, completed in 1931, was a bustling hub used every day by up to 64 passenger trains and some 10,000 passengers. Today it is home to the Durham Museum, which is dedicated to preserving and displaying the history of the nation’s Western region. Highly detailed bronze statues of long-ago passengers are scattered throughout the main hall, as if waiting for the arrival or departure of a train.

Bridges photo call committee: Cathy Harrington, project chair Alexandra Alberda Angela Carroll Kim Einspahr Jenn Gjerde Rita Kean Erin Lenz Bob Puschendorf Angela Sears Marilyn Stadler Donna Williams Anne Woita More information, including regional exhibit sponsors, available at www.hildegardcenter.org.

N E B R A S K A 150 | 1

BRIDGES PHOTO SELECTION

Butler

Cass

Cedar

ROCK SCHOOL | BY PATRICIA SCHEMMER Early residents provided for their children’s education by sprinkling schools throughout vast Cherry County. Located three miles from Crookston, District 48’s Rock School was built in 1896 with native limestone from local quarries. By 1918 it would be one of the more than 7,000 one-room country schools operating in Nebraska. Students attended the one-room school until 1965, when it consolidated with another district.

Chase

Cherry

CHERRY ESTABLISHED: 1883 Cheyenne COUNTY SEAT: VALENTINE LICENSE PLATE NUMBER: 66 32 | N E B R A S K A 150

RANCHING AND RIVERS. Cowboys and canoes. Boots and paddles. Cherry County hangs its hat on a unique natural landscape of grass-covered sand dunes and a largely free-flowing river set amid a concentration of scenic cliffs and waterfalls rare in the Great Plains. And it’s big. The county’s 6,009 square miles make it larger than the state of Connecticut.

The Niobrara River Valley is the biological crossroads of North America. Parts of at least five ecosystems — Rocky Mountain pine forest, northern boreal forest, eastern deciduous forest, tallgrass and shortgrass prairies — exist very close to each other and intermix in the river corridor.

The valley is the edge of the range for approximately 160 species of plants and animals.

Because of its exceptional and diverse features, Congress designated a portion of the Niobrara River as a scenic river in 1991. The Niobrara National Scenic River stretches 76 miles from Borman Bridge near Valentine to the Nebraska Highway 137 Bridge north of Newport. During the summer months, tens of thousands of people float the river, which ranks as one of the nation’s top 10 canoeing streams. The scenic river corridor includes portions of Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, Smith Falls State Park and the Nature Conservancy’s Niobrara Valley Preserve.

The Niobrara cut deep canyons into the limestone rocks that underlie the Sand Hills. Waterfalls occur where seeps and springs flow over layers of rock. Smith Falls, the state’s highest, tumbles 70 feet off a ridge. The 54-foot-wide Snake River Falls, southwest of Valentine, is the state’s largest.

CHERRY COUNTY HAS AN AREA EQUAL TO THE

COMBINED AREAS OF THE STATES OF DELAWARE & RHODE ISLAND.

IT IS ONE OF THE FEW COUNTIES IN THE UNITED STATES TO BE SITUATED IN TWO TIME ZONES. THE EASTERN THIRD IS IN THE CENTRAL TIME ZONE, AND THE WESTERN TWO-THIRDS IS IN THE MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE.

THE BRYAN BRIDGE The Bryan Bridge, an arched cantilever truss bridge held together by one central pin, is the only one of its kind in the United States.

It was built in 1932 and named in honor of Gov. Charles W. Bryan.

The picturesque design of the 289-foot-long span was selected to complement the natural beauty of the Niobrara River Valley.

SNAKE RIVER FALLS The Snake River tumbling over a 54-foot-wide ledge in a steep canyon north of Merritt Reservoir creates one of Nebraska’s most spectacular waterfalls. It is the largest waterfall in the state by volume.

BE MY VALENTINE Every February since the 1950s, the U.S. Post Office at Valentine has affixed special Valentine’s Day cachets on outgoing mail. People from around the world send letters and packages to the post office for the special rubber stamp designed by local high school students.

THE ANCESTORS OF THE CAMEL ONCE LIVED IN WHAT IS NOW CHERRY COUNTY

THE COUNTY SEAT WAS NAMED FOR

GARAGE SHOW

EDWARD K. VALENTINE,

Large crowds gathered and sat on planks or on the ground during the silent-movie era to watch films screened on the side of Allard’s Garage in Crookston on Saturday nights.

CONGRESSMAN FROM NEBRASKA AND SERGEANT-AT-ARMS OF THE U.S. SENATE.

EASYGOING ADVENTURE

IT’S IN THE STARS The exceptionally dark sky in a remote and sparsely populated region attracts amateur and veteran astronomers to the Nebraska Star Party at Merritt Reservoir each summer.

CHERRY COUNTY

WAS NAMED IN HONOR OF LT. SAMUEL A. CHERRY OF THE 5TH U.S. CAVALRY, WHO WAS SLAIN ON MAY 11, 1881, NEAR FORT NIOBRARA.

The combination of spectacular scenery and an easy float trip have made the Niobrara River downstream from Valentine one of the top canoeing rivers in the country. Rock beds form short stretches of fast water and riffles in some spots, but mostly the river flows lazily along at 2 to 3 mph. Outfitters in Valentine rent canoes, kayaks and tubes.

HOME BREW Cody was a notorious gambling and bootlegging center. A train-car load of sugar a week was used for manufacturing moonshine in hidden stills.

C H E R R Y C O U N T Y | 33

The outline of the Homestead Heritage Center at the Homestead National Monument was designed to suggest the look of a plowshare.

Gage

GAGE ESTABLISHED: 1855 Garden COUNTY SEAT: BEATRICE LICENSE PLATE NUMBER: 3 68 | N E B R A S K A 150

AS EARLY AS 1909, Nebraskans had urged Congress to create a national park site on Daniel Freeman’s homestead. Freeman was the Union soldier during the Civil War whose January 1, 1863, land claim west of present-day Beatrice was one of the first documented under the Homestead Act of 1862.

No single act had more effect on the Great Plains. It brought tens of thousands of land-hungry settlers to the region that was to become the nation’s breadbasket. Millions of acres from the public domain became available. The law granted 160 acres of free land to individuals. Heads of families had only to pay a small filing fee and live upon and cultivate the land for five years.

The act provided opportunity and motivation that lured the ancestors of millions of Americans.

It was the first law to invite immigrants to the United States and to provide a path to citizenship.

Immigrants could file for free land prior to becoming U.S. citizens. The act was revolutionary for its time, providing former slaves and women the opportunity to also pursue the dream of owning land.

Homesteading spanned 123 years — until 1986 in Alaska — and resulted in the transformation of more than 270 million acres of land across the nation.

Homesteaders claimed 45 percent of Nebraska. None of the other 29 homestead states had a greater percentage. Among the thousands of Nebraskans descended from homesteaders are author Willa Cather, football coach Tom Osborne, actress Marg Helgenberger, aviation pioneer Evelyn Sharp and former Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter.

BRIDGES PHOTO SELECTION

REV. WILLIAM D. GAGE,

FOR WHOM GAGE COUNTY WAS NAMED, WAS THE FIRST METHODIST PASTOR IN NEBRASKA AND CHAPLAIN OF THE FIRST TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE.

PALMER-EPARD CABIN | BY BERNADETTE KORSLUND The Palmer-Epard Cabin at the Homestead National Monument outside Beatrice has weathered winters for 150 years. George W. Palmer built the cabin in 1867 for his family, which included 10 children. Lawrence and Ida Epard later bought it and lived in it for nearly 40 years. White oak, red oak, hackberry, ash, locust, walnut and elm wood have been identified among the logs.

LIMESTONE BARN WIND AND WATER THE VILLAGE BOARD OF PICKRELL, INCORPORATED IN 1913, GRANTED A LIQUOR LICENSE IN ITS FIRST ACTION

Charles B. Dempster bought into a retail pump and windmill shop in Beatrice in 1878. The Dempster Mill Manufacturing Co. started producing windmills, pumps, water tanks and towers in 1886. The company sold nationwide and had branch offices in six other states by the 1920s. Windmills allowed settlers to harness the free and limitless power of the prairie wind to tap into the vast supply of underground water in areas with little or no available surface water.

The three-story, limestone Filley Stone Barn is one of the most magnificent barns in Nebraska. The 54-by-44-foot barn was built into a sloping hill.

The design provided access for cattle and oxen on the lower level, wagons and horses on the second level and 100 tons of hay in the loft. Elijah and Emma Filley arrived in 1867. They built a stone house with a thatched roof around their tent and called their homestead Cottage Hill Farm. The Filleys became leading farmers and stock raisers. They put all of their land under cultivation and planted miles of osage orange fence to contain their cattle. Construction of the barn employed farmers from across the county and beyond after a grasshopper plague destroyed their crops during the summer of 1874.

A NAME BRAND

DANIEL FREEMAN

WAS AMONG THE FIRST TO FILE A CLAIM TO 160 ACRES OF FREE LAND OFFERED BY THE HOMESTEAD ACT OF 1862.

Dairy products from Beatrice Creamery Co. (started in 1894) were shipped across the nation early in the 20th century. The firm’s headquarters moved to Chicago in 1913, and the name changed to Beatrice Foods in 1946. The company has had the Meadow Gold brand since the 1890s.

ONETIME INDIAN VILLAGE An Otoe-Missouria Indian village and agency were located in Gage County after the creation of Nebraska Territory in 1854. The two tribes had lived along the lower Platte River, but they relinquished those lands in exchange for yearly cash payments, agricultural equipment and a reservation of about 250 square miles along the Nebraska-Kansas border. The community in 1870 consisted of 40 earth lodges and several bark houses and tepees. There was also a school/church and a two-story frame house for the agent. As settlers filled the county, Congress decided to move the tribes to Indian Territory in present Oklahoma. The reservation was sold for $6.42 an acre and by 1881 the two tribes were gone. After the Indians left, Francis M. Barnes opened a store near the site to accommodate settlers. The community was named Barneston.

AUDITORIUM The Beatrice Municipal Auditorum was built in 1940 by the Public Works Administration. The relief depicts farming scenes.

G A G E C O U N T Y | 69

Lincoln

Logan

Loup

Madison

McPherson

Pony Express riders and the Sidney-Deadwood Trail went around the west side of Jail Rock, on the left, and Courthouse Rock. A Pony Express station was southwest of the buttes.

Merrick

Morrill

MORRILL ESTABLISHED: 1908 Nance COUNTY SEAT: BRIDGEPORT LICENSE PLATE NUMBER: 64 124 | N E B R A S K A 150

COURTHOUSE AND JAIL ROCKS were landmarks and vanguards of unforgettable scenic bluffs that thousands of overland travelers would encounter up the trail during the mid-1800s. The OregonCalifornia Trail, the Mormon Trail, the Pony Express Trail and the Sidney-Deadwood Trail passed nearby. Hundreds of emigrants mentioned gigantic Courthouse Rock in their diaries. Often called a “castle” or “solitary tower,” the name Courthouse was first used in 1837. One 1845 traveler described the rock as “resembling the ruins of an old castle (which) rises abruptly from the plain. ... It is difficult to look upon it and not believe that art had something to do with its construction. The voyagers have called it the Courthouse; but it looks infinitely more like the Capitol.”

The rocks rise 400 feet above the North Platte Valley. Composed of clay, sandstone and volcanic ash, they are remnants of an ancient plateau bisected by the North Platte River and isolated from the hills bordering the valley. The buttes have been significant landmarks since fur trader Robert Stuart’s journey down the North Platte River in 1812. By the time the Forty-Niners came by, the towering promontories had been described variously as the “Castle,” the “Church” or the “Coffin.”

They were the first of several rock formations the pioneers were to see up the valley, whether they were Mormons on the north side of the river in 1847, or Forty-Niners traveling the south side from Ash Hollow. An oxbow in Pumpkin Creek on the south side of the rocks created a meadow campsite for fur trappers, Indians, gold seekers and Army troops.

CHIMNEY ROCK

BRIDGES PHOTO SELECTION

IS A FAMOUS LANDMARK OF THE OREGON TRAIL IN MORRILL COUNTY. THE PHOTOGRAPHS BELOW SHOW HOW ITS SHAPE WAS ALTERED BETWEEN 1898 (UPPER) AND 1999, MOSTLY BY EROSION AND

BY LIGHTNING. IT IS A NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE.

Chimney Rock, located about four miles south of Bayard, is part of the remains from the erosion of bluffs towering over the North Platte Valley. The first fur traders in the region are believed to have provided its name, which was in common usage by travelers passing through on their way to Oregon and California in the 1840s.

Chimney Rock can be seen up to 30 miles away, and settlers moving along the Platte River in the 19th century frequently referred to it in their journals.

Freighter Henry T. Clarke built a 2,000-foot bridge with 61 wooden trusses across the North Platte River in 1876.

The Camp Clarke Bridge was three miles west of present-day Bridgeport. Freight from Sidney, Nebraska, and gold from the Black Hills mines in Dakota Territory flowed across the bridge for nearly a decade. About 22 million pounds of freight passed over the trail in 1878-79. A hamlet named Camp Clarke sprang up nearby. The route also supplied the Lakota at Red Cloud Agency near Camp Robinson. Tolls of $2 to $6 were assessed on the hundreds of freight wagons, stagecoaches and riders that crossed. A log blockhouse stood on an island in the river near the north bank. Although travel on the trail declined after 1880, the bridge continued in local use until about 1900.

Between 1842 and 1859 an estimated 20,000 emigrants, about 5 percent of the total, died along the overland trails. Cholera in 1849, 1852 and 1859 caused many adult deaths.

Malaria, smallpox, measles and dysentery took a toll on children and adults. One cholera victim was Amanda Lamme. A wife and mother of three daughters, the California-bound emigrant died June 23, 1850, and was buried southeast of present-day Bridgeport. Travelers were sometimes crushed beneath wagon wheels. Drownings were common at river crossings. Accidental shootings were frequent.

Few emigrants were killed by Indians.

TRAGIC ENDING

CHIMNEY ROCK | BY CURTIS BLUM

19TH CENTURY TOLL BRIDGE

DEADLY TRAVEL

MORRILL COUNTY WAS NAMED IN HONOR OF

CHARLES H. MORRILL,

NEBRASKA FINANCIER. HE WAS A REGENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA FOR YEARS AND SPONSORED MANY GEOLOGICAL EXPEDITIONS IN THE STATE.

Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding, following the north side of the North Platte River on horseback in June 1836, were the first white women to cross the American continent.

They traveled from New York to Otoe Indian Agency (Bellevue, Nebraska) with their Protestant missionary husbands and joined an American Fur Company caravan led by Thomas Fitzpatrick. Narcissa, her husband and 11 others were massacred by Cayuse Indians at their Oregon mission in 1847.

MUD SPRINGS BATTLE From February 4-6, 1865, Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors attacked Mud Springs — then a stagecoach station with a telegraph — after sacking Julesburg in Colorado Territory in retaliation for the massacre of peaceful Cheyenne at Sand Creek, Colorado. The 14 men at the station south of Bridgeport, including nine soldiers, held out until reinforcements arrived.

FOCUSING ON FOSSILS Loren Eiseley was a student member of a University of Nebraska paleontology crew searching the Wildcat Hills near Bayard in 1932 when fascinating a fossil was discovered. The fangs and skull of one saber-toothed predator appeared locked in the leg bone of another saber-tooth after a fight to the death 25 million years ago.

Scientists now believe the fang and leg bone belonged to one animal. The weight of millions of years of sediment pushed the fang through the fossilized leg bone. Eiseley became a world-renowned anthropologist, naturalist, writer and philosopher. A Lincoln native, his field experience in the Badlands of western Nebraska inspired his best writings.

The first of his 11 books — “The Immense Journey,” a 1957 collection of essays about the progression of life — established his reputation.

He wrote about the saber-tooth fossils and bone hunters in a 1973 poem titled “The Innocent Assassins.”

M O R R I L L C O U N T Y | 125

Thomas

Thurston

THURSTON ESTABLISHED: 1889 Valley COUNTY SEAT: PENDER LICENSE PLATE NUMBER: 55 DESPITE ITS LOCATION along the Missouri River, Thurston County was not among the early river counties in Nebraska. It was the homeland of the Omaha Tribe before white settlers came to the territory. It later became the adopted home of the Winnebago Tribe.

The Omaha migrated to the upper Missouri by the late 17th century from locations in the Ohio River Valley. The name “Omaha” means those going against the wind or current.

French traders knew the Missouri as “The River of the Mahas.” By 1750, the Omaha occupied a large region in northeastern Nebraska and northwestern Iowa. Two decades later, it became the first tribe on the Northern Plains to adopt equestrian culture.

The Omaha never took up arms against the flood of white settlers and ceded much of their land in Nebraska Territory in an 1854 treaty.

They were left with a reservation in what was known as Blackbird County, in honor of Omaha Chief Blackbird. In 1865, the Omaha sold the northern half of their reservation to the Winnebago, a displaced Wisconsin tribe starving on barren land in Dakota Territory.

The federal government opened 50,000 acres of the reservations to white settlers in 1884, creating a land rush that foreshadowed the famed Oklahoma land rush five years later.

Within decades following passage of the Dawes Act of 1887, which granted landholdings to individual tribesmen and opened “surplus” land to settlers, the majority of what had been tribal land was in white hands.

174 | N E B R A S K A 150

A bronze sculpture of an eagle gliding over a man offering a prayer overlooks a statue garden at Ho-Chunk Village in Winnebago. In American Indian culture, eagles carry man’s prayers to the creator. The circular statue garden features larger-than-lifesize concrete representations of the 12 Winnebago clans: Bear, Buffalo, Deer, Eagle, Elk, Fish, Hawk, Pigeon, Snake, Thunder, Water Spirit and Wolf.

BRIDGES PHOTO SELECTION

LA FLESCHE FAMILY

THURSTON COUNTY FENCE LINE | BY DANIEL LUEDERT Shortly after the organization of the Nebraska Territory in 1854, the land was surveyed into the grid system. The patterns of section line roads, fields and fences follow this rectangular surveying system that still defines the landscape of the state. In 1884 the federal government released a portion of the Omaha Indian Reservation to settlers. The laws opening the land to settlement forbade entrance “until 12 (noon) on the appointed day.” Local history indicates that on April 30, 1884, the signal was given by firing a gun, at which time people rushed out onto the land. When an unoccupied marker was reached, a plow was unloaded and used to mark a fence line.

THURSTON COUNTY WAS NAMED IN HONOR OF

JOHN M. THURSTON, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM NEBRASKA.

FORT OMAHA SCOUTS In early 1865, about 75 members of the Winnebago Tribe enlisted in the 34th Nebraska Volunteers. Known as Company A of the Fort Omaha Scouts, the unit took an active part in quelling an Indian uprising. A homecoming festival celebrated the return of the Winnebago veterans in 1866, but Chief Little Priest soon died of wounds received in Army service. His service flag was raised the next year as a symbol of the tribe’s allegiance to the country.

The ceremony continues at the tribe’s annual powwow.

NAME WITH A PURPOSE The 1892 Peebles Building in Pender was a town cornerstone as the three-story, brick home of a hotel and bank. It was constructed by Pender founder W.E. Peebles. He claimed land in 1884 that he was certain would be a town site, ensuring the gamble by naming it for a railroad director.

Sisters Susette La Flesche Tibbles and Susan La Flesche Picotte came from an extraordinary family. Their father was Omaha Chief Joseph “Iron Eye” La Flesche. The son of an Indian woman and a Frenchman, he embraced education and ensured that his children would learn English and attend the local mission school. He was the last traditional chief of the Omaha.

Tibbles (above), also called Bright Eyes, was a progressive advocate for American Indian rights. She was Ponca Chief Standing Bear’s interpreter during his 1879 trial at Fort Omaha. She was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1983. Picotte (below) was the first American Indian woman to become a physician, graduating first in her class in 1889.

She returned to the Omaha Reservation and was known for keeping a lighted lamp in the window of her home to welcome patients in the night.

In 1913 she opened a hospital with a full-length screened porch overlooking Walthill.

The hospital served patients until the 1940s.

CHIEF BLACKBIRD’S BURIAL SITE Omaha Chief Blackbird was buried at the crest of a hill overlooking the Missouri River. The Omaha were not warlike but were prosperous and the most powerful tribe in the Great Plains during his time. Blackbird was one of the first of the Plains chiefs to trade with white explorers and believed to be among the first to openly question white encroachment. He died during a smallpox epidemic in 1800. Lewis and Clark Expedition members were led to his burial site near present-day Macy in 1804.

T H U R S T O N C O U N T Y | 175

Washington

The Willa Cather Memorial Prairie south of Red Cloud has nearly two miles of hiking trail cut through native grassland.

Wayne

Webster

WEBSTER ESTABLISHED: 1871 Wheeler COUNTY SEAT: RED CLOUD LICENSE PLATE NUMBER: 45 182 | N E B R A S K A 150

WILLA CATHER, ONE of the most important American novelists of the first half of the 20th century, came to Webster County from Virginia in 1883 at the age of 9. The vast open prairie made a lasting impression on her. “This country was mostly wild pasture and as naked as the back of your hand. I was little and homesick and lonely and my mother was homesick and nobody paid any attention to us. So the country and I had it out together and by the end of the first autumn, that shaggy grass country had gripped me with a passion I have never been able to shake.” Her life task became writing the tales she heard and the drama she witnessed during her growing years.

Among her 12 novels are “My Antonia,” “Song of the Lark” and “O Pioneers!” In 1923, she received the Pulitzer Prize for “One of Ours,” a novel set during World War I. The 610-acre Willa Cather Memorial Prairie south of Red Cloud preserves an example of the native grassland that once covered Nebraska. Cather’s depictions of the prairie and farming communities were milestones in American literature. From “My Antonia”: “As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.”

“Miss Cather is Nebraska’s foremost citizen,” wrote author Sinclair Lewis. “The United States knows Nebraska because of Willa Cather’s books.” She is a member of the Nebraska Hall of Fame.

POINTING THE WAY

BRIDGES CONTEST WINNER

WEBSTER COUNTY WAS NAMED IN HONOR OF

DANIEL WEBSTER OF MASSACHUSETTS, ONE OF THE GREATEST ORATORS, STATESMEN AND POLITICAL POWERS OF HIS DAY.

Near Guide Rock was a large permanent village of the Republican band of the Pawnee tribe that may have occupied the area as early as 1777.

Army Lt. Zebulon Pike (below) visited the village with a small party of soldiers in 1806.

DUGOUT VOTE

STARKE ROUND BARN | BY SHANE BOOTH The Starke Round Barn was built in 1902-03 by the four Starke brothers – Conrad, Ernest, Bill and Chris – who came to Nebraska from Milwaukee. The structure measures 130 feet in diameter and has a central silo and three levels: the bottom for livestock, the second for machinery and grain storage, and the third a loft for hay. The construction method combines balloon framing and heavy timber supports built without the use of nails or pegs. The Starke Round Barn, located near Red Cloud, is the state’s largest round barn, as well as one of the largest in the nation. The barn now is the site for numerous special events throughout the year, including the annual Barnfest Celebration.

Red Cloud, named for the Oglala Lakota chief, was founded early in 1871 on homestead land filed upon by Silas Garber in 1870 at Beatrice, the nearest land office. It is one of the oldest communities in the Republican River Valley. Red Cloud was voted the county seat at an election held in the dugout of Garber, who would serve as Nebraska’s governor from 1875 to 1879.

THE FIRST TRIAL IN WEBSTER COUNTY WAS THAT OF A MAN TRIED BEFORE THE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ON THE CHARGE OF SELLING LIQUOR WITHOUT A LICENSE.

‘EVERYTHING A LITTLE ON THE SLANT’ Willa Cather’s childhood home in Red Cloud remains the most important Nebraska building associated with her literary career. She describes it in “Old Mrs. Harris,” in “The Best Years” and in this from “Song of the Lark”: “They turned into another street and saw before them lighted windows; a low story-and-a-half house, with wing built on at the right and a kitchen addition at the back, everything a little on the slant – roofs, windows and doors.”

THE FIRST SETTLEMENT IN WEBSTER COUNTY WAS MADE IN THE SPRING OF 1870

AT GUIDE ROCK, WHERE A STOCKADE WAS BUILT FOR PROTECTION AGAINST THE INDIANS.

He was greeted by the Pawnee chief and 300 horsemen. Pike’s party found that the village had been recently visited by a large Spanish expedition from Santa Fe. He set up camp with rifle pits on the north bank of the river opposite the village. He persuaded the Pawnee to lower a Spanish flag and raise the U.S. flag. After holding peace conferences among the Osage, Kansas and Pawnee, Pike served notice the land was now a part of the United States and the Spanish would be forbidden in the area.

He defied the warnings of the Pawnee not to travel southwest toward the Spanish settlements.

Pike’s troops were captured by the Spanish but later released.

A short distance downstream from the village site is one of the five sacred places of the Pawnee.

It was known as Pa-hur to the Pawnee or “hill that points the way” and as Guide Rock to the whites.

RAILROAD’S ARRIVAL The mainline of the Burlington and Missouri River Railway reached Red Cloud in 1879, accelerating immigration from the East and abroad and bringing together a variety of cultural heritages.

W E B S T E R C O U N T Y | 183

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Author David Hendee is a fifth-generation Nebraskan. His great-great-grandfather, Alfred Hendee (foot on running board), was among the Civil War veterans gathered in front of the Paddock Hotel in Beatrice in about 1940. Alfred moved to Lancaster County from Indiana in a covered wagon and bought a farm near Panama in the 1870s. The other veterans were J.H. Albee of Minden (left), Lewis C. McBride of Lincoln, Cyrus Fox of Gandy and William Nixon of Jewell, Kansas. The vehicle was Alfred Hendee’s 1928 Model A Ford.

188 | N E B R A S K A 150

THE WORLD-HERALD ENJOYS a deep reservoir of goodwill across Nebraska. It has been my privilege to tap it for decades. I returned to that well for this book and am indebted to a great many people for their help. It starts with Nebraskans from every corner of the state who opened their historic homes and offices, treasured museums – even remote patches of prairie — to enthusiastically share their stories.

Scholars and historians were unselfish in their time and helpfulness. Chief among them was James E. Potter, the late senior research historian at the Nebraska State Historical Society. As always, Jim patiently and readily answered questions I peppered him with over the telephone or during unannounced visits to his Lincoln office during the early weeks of this project. His “Standing Firmly By the Flag: Nebraska Territory and the Civil War, 1861-1867” is an excellent narrative of the fitful path to statehood. Sadly, Jim passed away in August 2016.

A debt is owed to the authors or editors of previous histories of Nebraska, most notably University of Nebraska-Lincoln historian Frederick C. Luebke and his “Nebraska: An Illustrated History.”

Others include David Wishart and the “Encyclopedia of the Great Plains,” David L. Bristow and “A Dirty, Wicked Town: Tales of 19th Century Omaha” and “Nebraska…Our Towns,” a collection of histories collected from 1988 through 1992.

Nebraska History, a quarterly publication of the State Historical Society, is a wealth of information. The more than 500 historical markers across the state commemorate significant events, people, places, sites, movements and traditions. About 1,100 Nebraska sites are listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and many of them are pictured in this book. Each site’s documentation provides rich detail about the location and community.

The Nebraska State Historical Society, Nebraska Museums Association, National Park Service, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Sandhills Task Force, county and town offices and the Nebraska Association of County Officials reinforced my respect for the professionalism of the people entrusted with our state’s historical, cultural, governmental and natural resources.

There are more than 300 photographs, nearly 1,000 stories or factoids and more than 100 drawings in this book. Many of the photographs are the product of the newspaper’s talented staff, past and present. I’m thankful for the thorough and widespread reporting across Nebraska that The World-Herald has produced for more than 150 years. No other newsroom in the state enjoys the resources The World-Herald devotes to news gathering. This book borrows and builds on that work.

Special thanks to Executive Editor Mike Reilly for assigning me to this project. It was a joy and among my career highlights. Book editor Dan Sullivan and designer Christine Zueck-Watkins deserve credit not only for creating the attractive and readable template that unfolds in these pages, but for their guidance, good humor and patience.

No World-Herald book would be as sharp or attractive without the dedication and skill of photo imager Jolene McHugh.

World-Herald library chief Jeanne Hauser dug into the newspaper’s extensive files to glean valuable nuggets of information and archived photographs. Thanks to colleagues Rich Mills, Joanne Stewart and Pam Thomas for editing.

We should always be thankful for those who opened the doors to opportunity. From high school and college journalism classes to newsrooms at the Sidney Telegraph and The World-Herald, some of my mentors included Glen Houtz, Marilyn Peterson, Frank Partsch, John Gottschalk, Con Marshall, Carl Keith, Mike Finney, George Edmonson and Anne Henderson.

Finally, spouses and families of newspaper journalists learn early on that there is no deadline for coming home. My wife, Polly, lovingly indulged and encouraged me, as always, during long hours of research, travel and writing.

Tom Buecker, the late Fort Robinson historian and my friend, would have been enthused to see another book plowing into Nebraska history. During one of my last interviews with Tom, he explained the challenge: “People want history to be neat and tidy, but history isn’t cut and dried.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Hendee grew up in Sidney and graduated from Sidney High School and Midland Lutheran College in Fremont.

Above: Jacob Nelson, the author’s immigrant grandfather and a Kimball County rancher, enjoyed spirited horses. He was 17 years old in September 1898 and working for a rancher on Horse Creek in Wyoming when he and buddy John Rasmussen went to the second Cheyenne Frontier Days in Cheyenne. They ended up carrying U.S. flags alongside Buffalo Bill Cody and his daughter, Irma, at the front of the parade. They were paid $1 each.

Right: Matilda Anderson, the future wife of Jacob Nelson and the author’s grandmother, with her horse, Molly, in front of her parents’ Kimball County sod house in the early 1900s.

He has spent more than 40 years as a reporter and editor for The World-Herald, covering blizzards, tornadoes, floods, agriculture, crime, elections, wildfires, regional and national public policy, outdoor recreation — and fans of Cornhusker football and the College World Series.

The stories have taken him to each of Nebraska’s 93 counties and hundreds of communities, farms and ranches across the Great Plains. He has filed dispatches from the White House, the state’s first mountain lion hunt, the sandhill cranes’ Alaska range, the Canadian Rockies, the ballistic missile submarine USS Nebraska and the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea.

Hendee has been the North American Agricultural Journalists’ farm writer of the year and received the Outdoor Writers Association of America’s sweepstakes award.

His family includes his wife, Polly; daughter Dana and her husband, Matthew Bork, and children, Oscar and Ruby; and daughter Laura Hendee.

EDITOR Dan Sullivan DESIGNER Christine Zueck-Watkins PHOTO IMAGING Jolene McHugh CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Rich Mills Joanne Stewart Kathy Sullivan Pam Thomas INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGER Michelle Gullett DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Rich Warren DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Jeff Bundy PRINT AND PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Pat “Murphy” Benoit EXECUTIVE EDITOR Mike Reilly PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER Terry Kroeger REPRINT INFORMATION Omaha World-Herald photos are available from the OWHstore. Call 402-444-1014 to place an order or go to OWHstore.com.

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody posed on horseback in Omaha in the early 1900s. Cody stopped in the city eight times during the 30-year run of his Wild West traveling shows.

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R | 189

The moon sets at sunrise behind Sheep Mountain, part of the Wildcat Hills, in Banner County.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Allan, Tom Batson, Bill Beiermann, Jeff Bundy, Jeff Burnett, James R. Carney, Jeffrey Z.

Cass County Historical Society Cruse, Kiley Davis, Mark Denney, James Dixon, Matt Dorwart, Chris Farmer, Megan

Gratz, Rebecca S. Hendee, David Hildegard Center for the Arts Hoffman, Sarah Inns, Laura Johnson, Phil Keeler, Kurt A.

Lemons, Jon Machian, Chris Miller, Matt Nebraska State Historical Society Nebraska Tourism Commission Oyabu, Nobuko Phipps, Robert

Rife, Maggie Scheer, Marcus Schukar, Alyssa Sievers, Kent Soderlin, Ryan Sullivan, Brendan Sullivan, Dan

NEBRASKA 150 YEARS TOLD THROUGH 93 COUNTIES

NEBRASKA TURNS 150 IN 2017, and it’s time to celebrate the century-and-a-half-old story. The Omaha World-Herald’s David Hendee brings the state’s history to life with a fascinating look at its 93 counties. The newspaper’s award-winning photographers and artist Mike Parks add vivid detail to the look back.

Learn about the statesmen, scoundrels, heroism and happenstance that helped make Nebraska what it is today. From the Plains tribes to the earliest arriving settlers, Nebraskans can re-stake their claims to the state’s heritage.

Also featured are photographs from “Bridges: Sharing Our Past to Enrich the Future,” an initiative by the Hildegard Center for the Arts, in partnership with the Nebraska Tourism Commission and the Nebraska State Historical Society. The images highlight historical and culturally significant places in all 93 counties.

$29.95

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