Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
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In the years from 1784 to 1789, the Shawnee and Miami Indians of Kentucky routinely raided along the Ohio River and the settlements to the north. During those years, more than 1,500 settlers had been killed and yet no declaration of war was made nor was there an organized military defense mounted to stop the deadly raids. Finally, in 1789, President George Washington contacted Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, (at that time the Northwest Territory of the U.S. was the...
Flip a Nebraska state quarter and if it comes up tails, you'll see an image of the eighth wonder of the natural world. Although Chimney Rock – located along the Oregon Trail between Bridgeport and Gering isn't on any list of the wonders of the world – it was to many thousands of immigrants on the Oregon Trail, quite possibly the visual highlight of the trip. It's quite likely that the vast majority of those who came west had only heard of the Seven Wonders of the World, and to their way of thi...
On November 2, 1912 the last herd of cattle on the famous XIT ranch was sold. It was but a brief 27 years earlier, on July 1, 1885 that the first herd of Texas Longhorns were brought to the sprawling, three million acre ranch. During those twenty-seven years Texas could rightfully boast of having the largest cattle ranch in the world. The birth of the XIT began in 1879 when the Sixteenth Texas Legislature designated a three million acre parcel of land to be sold for the purpose of raising the...
"If everybody jumped off a cliff would you jump after them?" This was the question my mother would pose when our pleas to be allowed some frivolous privilege included the irrational rational that "everybody's doing it." Perhaps Bobby Leach's mother had already passed on when the 53-0yea- old, Cornwall, UK, circus performer decided to go over the edge of Niagara Falls in a steel barrel. If not, it is obvious that she was unable to dissuade him from the foolhardy attempt. Bobby owned a restaurant...
First woman to receive a medical degree: Elizabeth Blackwell, Jan. 23, 1849 First woman to file a Nebraska Homestead Claim: Mary Meyer (Meier), Jan. 1863 First American woman astronaut in space: Sally Kristen Ride, June 23, 1983 First ever – man or woman – to make the plunge over Niagara Falls: Annie Edson Taylor, Oct. 24, 1901. Annie Edson was born in Auburn, N.Y., on Oct. 24, 1838. Her father, Merrick Edson, owned and operated a very successful flour mill in the area and the family might be sa...
Dad sat comfortably on the one-legged milk stool, his capped head pressed firmly into the flank of 'Little Red' as he massaged the old cows udder. Then, placing a galvanized bucket between his knees, he wrapped his fingers around her teats and began the rhythmic squeeze and pull that brought down the milk. The stream of milk against the buckets side drummed like the sound of a steady rain on a tin roof and brought the barn cats running. I stood a few steps back, leaning against the smooth, stock...
On May 19, 1848, 75 fresh recruits were mustered on the parade ground at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Most of those young men were backwoods boys from the Missouri hills and, being of solid frontier stock, were somewhat prepared for the duty for which they had been recruited. Under the command of 1st Lieutenant William B. Royall, these new recruits would be replenishing the decimated ranks of the Santa Fe battalion fighting the Mexicans at Chihuahua. This company of new recruits was the first to be...
On Oct. 31, 1855, the deadliest battle between the Rogue River Indians and the U.S. Army took place near the Oregon-California trail between Cow Creek and Wolf Creek among the Grave Creek Hills. The battle had long since been forgotten until recently when eastern newspaper articles resurfaced, eye-witness accounts were discovered and scant military records found. Over the past century and a half, even the location of the battle had been forgotten until professor Mark Tveskov of Southern Oregon...
"I appreciate fine horseflesh as much as the next fellow," Grandpa reflected as he reached into his shirt pocket, extracted a plug of "Tinsley" and cut off a chunk with his ever-ready Case pocketknife. We were leaning against the top rail of the fence, staring across the pasture and had been talking about horses. "But," he continued as he pointed the pocketknife and plug in my direction, "When it comes to all out brute work, nothing beats a good pair of mules." "Now don't get me wrong," Grandpa...
A great deal of literature and significant archaeological findings have been published that indicate the occurrence of human sacrifice among the religious practices of early South American tribes, most notably the Aztec. Less well known is the ritual of human sacrifice of the North American Plains Indians, the Skidi Pawnee, in the region of what is today Nebraska and Kansas. Some suggest that the practice among the Pawnee was adapted from the Aztec culture and others believe that the Pawnee...
On May 24, 1869, Maj. John Wesley Powell – along with nine other adventurous men – launched four specially designed boats into the waters of the Green River and began a four-month long expedition into the unexplored Grand Canyon. Sixteen days into the journey, the most serious mishap of the entire expedition occurred. Oramel Howland – piloting one of the four boats, "No Name" – missed Powell's command to go ashore and was caught up in a series of violent rapids that resulted in the destruc...
On Sept. 7, 1869, a telegrapher in Utah received what was most likely the newsflash of the day: "Powell's three men killed by three She-bits ... Indian report that they were found in an exhausted state, fed by the She-bits and put on the trail leading to Washington after which they saw a squaw gathering seed and shot her. Whereupon the She-bits followed up and killed all three." The three dead men were Oramel G. Howland, 36; his younger brother, Seneca B. Howland, 26; and William H. Dunn, a...
According to the definitive history of "The American Fur Trade of the Far West," written by Hiram Martin Chittenden and published by New York publishers in 1902, Major Alexander Culbertson died Aug. 27, 1879, and was buried in Orleans, Mo. Consequently, scholars of the American fur trade assumed the information to be correct. However, Nebraska historian Charles E. Hanson Jr. discovered a 1940 biography in the Montana Historical Societies publication of "Contributions" that cited a different loca...
The sultry month of August brings the last hurrah of summer. The wheat harvest is nearly finished and the combine crews are heading back home. The third cutting of alfalfa is stacked in the barn and the sweet smell of fresh cut hay will linger well into December. The threat of hail is almost passed and hot west winds compete with that day in July when it was hotter than the fourth. Six-foot-tall stalks of corn wave topknot tassels while threads of corn silk spill from plump, ripening ears. The...
The first steamboat to haul freight up the Missouri River was an early paddle wheeler, christened the 'Independence', under the command of Captain John Nelson. Nelson piloted the boat from St. Louis, Missouri as far north as Franklin, Missouri in a total of 13 days that included seven days of actual running time. The boat then continued upriver a short distance to Chariton before turning back toward St. Louis. Franklin's newly established newspaper, The Missouri Intelligencer, reported the histo...
Hannah Dustin has the distinction of being the first American woman to be recognized and honored for her heroism with a statue. And not by just one statue but four other separate memorial markers and also commemorated by the Hannah Dustin Health Care Center, The Hannah Dustin Rest Home and The Hannah Dustin Elementary School. Additionally the Dustin House, in Haverhill, Massachusetts is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Sculptor William Andrews created the first memorial to...
At 9 o'clock on the evening of Aug. 6, 1867 the telegraph went dead at the Union Pacific's Plum Creek Station near present day Lexington, Nebraska. Telegrapher William Thompson, a recent immigrant from Hampshire, England cussed his bad luck as he made his way to the section house. A dead line meant there was a downed line and William would have to roust out the section crew and join them in a search for the location of the problem. He suspected that the trouble was directly related to the...
The Battle of Summit Springs on July 11, 1869 successfully crushed the strength of the Dog Soldier Society of the Cheyenne. The society, made up of members of both the southern and northern Cheyenne scattered after their defeat. Previous battles with the troops under Major Carr had already reduced the numbers of warriors by nearly half and the surprise attack on that July day reduced their numbers by almost another half. Tall Bull, their fearless and uncompromising leader, was dead and the...
The bloody path to war on White Bear Creek began long before the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers under Chief Tall Bull's leadership began their vengeful and brutal raids among the settlements along the Saline River in north central Kansas Territory. The battle on White Bear Creek on July 11, 1869 ended in unison with a violent prairie thunderstorm and also brought an end to the murderous raids of Tall Bull and his Dog Soldiers. Defeated at Summit Springs, their leader left dead on the battlefield, the...
In the early afternoon of July 11, 1869, Chief of Scouts William F. Cody and Captain Frank North, leader of the famous Pawnee Scouts, crouched behind the crest of a gentle rise on the grass covered prairie in northeastern Colorado Territory a short distance south of what is now Sterling, Colorado. They had approached, undetected, to within less than a mile of Cheyenne Chief Tall Bull's camp. Colonel Eugene A. Carr, under orders to punish the Cheyenne for recent murderous attacks on settlers...
July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress, convened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, adopted the Declaration of Independence proclaiming the independence of a new United States of America from Great Britain and its king. It had been nearly 15 months since the first shots of the American Revolution had been fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. The Declaration was for the most part the work of Thomas Jefferson. In justifying the appeal for American independence, Jefferson drew much of his i...
On May 3, 1887 the Sonora earthquake hit the village of Bavispe, Mexico. The magnitude 7.6 quake leveled the adobe buildings of Bavispe and killed 42 of the village's 700 inhabitants. The violent quake was felt for more that 200 miles from its epicenter near the Arizona/Mexico border. Dr. George Emory Goodfellow, then practicing medicine in Tombstone, Arizona, loaded a wagon with medical supplies and rode the 90 miles from Tombstone to Bavispe to aid those injured in the quake. In recognition...
This past week my wife, Deb, and I attended a sacred Lakota ceremony for the freeing of the spirit and wiping of the tears. Lakota holy man Basil Brave Heart gathered us together on a high point of rocks overlooking a lush, green valley on the southern fringes of the Black Hills. Under the grey skies of an impending spring rain Basil sent the spirit of our close friend, David, on a journey where, in death, he would join the spirits of his ancestors. In his left hand, Basil held the sacred staff...
"The Gallows. Six Murderers Executed." So read the headlines in the September 4, 1875 edition of The New York Times. This single event, the simultaneous hanging of six men at Fort Smith Arkansas, earned Judge Isaac Parker the moniker of "The Hanging Judge" and executioner George Maledon the distinction of being the "Prince of Hangmen." These seemingly morbid titles might be somewhat repulsive to most people these days. However, to those few who were attempting to live a peaceful, law-abiding exi...
Charles Badger Clark Jr. was born on the first day of January 1883, the youngest of four children born to Charles Badger Clark Sr. and Mary Ellen Cleaver. Charles Sr. had joined the 25th Iowa Infantry at the outbreak of the Civil War and was seriously wounded at Vicksburg. After his discharge from the service, Charles entered Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant and began his Methodist ministry in 1864. Charles Badger Clark Sr. and Mary Ellen were married in Mount Pleasant, Iowa in 1865....
