Since times unrecorded, springs from the Ogallala Formation relieved travelers through the Republican Valley. In 1930 Benkelman citizens improved a nearby spring to benefit motorists on NE 3 (later US 34). The 1935 Republican River flood destroyed the original spring and highway. When the highway was relocated, this rest area was established in 1941 at the site of another spring. The highway was relocated again in 1970 and the state deeded the rest area to Dundy County. Local residents restored it in 2008.
]]>In May 1944 German prisoners of war from Camp Atlanta, Nebraska, were sent to a side camp near here to help area farmers complete the 1943 corn harvest. Seven farmers employed forty-four Germans, who harvested some ten thousand bushels of corn. Six tarpapered frame buildings, enclosed by a fence, housed the prisoners; a nearby windmill served as a guard tower. The Germans returned to Camp Atlanta on June 30, 1944, and the buildings were sold in February 1945.
]]>Actor Ward Edwin Bond was born in this house on April 9, 1903, the son of John W. and Mabel L. Bond. The family lived here until leaving Benkelman in 1919. Ward Bond played supporting roles in more than 250 motion pictures and starred as Major Seth Adams, the wagon master in the NBC television series, Wagon Train, which began in 1957. Bond died of a heart attack in Dallas, Texas on November 5, 1960 at age fifty- seven.
]]>After the slaughter of the buffalo and the last of the Indian hunts, ranchers moved into this part of the Republican River country in 1875. Among them were I. P. and Ira Olive, who were using this canyon on their range in 1876. Herds of Texas cattle were delivered to them here before being driven north to Ogallala.
Prior to 1880, the main Texas-Ogallala Trail entered Nebraska fifty miles east of here, but, with the influx of homesteaders, the trail was pushed west to this area. By 1881 this canyon was known as Texas Trail Canyon, and a checkpoint was established here in 1883-84, where the cattle were checked for brands and disease. It is said that 150,000 cattle were moved through here in 1886, the last year of the trail drives.
A number of pioneer burials were made in the immediate vicinity, beginning with Mexican Leon, a cowboy killed in a fight with Ira Olive. When the railroad built through in 1881-82, a worker was killed and buried 100 yards east of here. Remains of several unidentified pioneers, adults and children, have been discovered over the years, and they were reinterred here in 1971.
]]>General George Armstrong Custer, commanding troops A, D, E, H, K and M of the Seventh Cavalry, camped near here June 22 to 30, 1867, after a march from Fort McPherson, Nebraska. They were campaigning against the elusive Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. On June 24 Pawnee Killer led a dawn attack on Custer's camp, wounding a sentry. There followed a parley between Custer and his officers and Pawnee Killer, Pole Cat, Fire Lightning and Walks Underground. Neither side was able to learn the plans of the other, and an Indian effort to separate the officers from their command was thwarted. Later Captain Hamilton and forty troopers, pursuing a decoy war party, rode into an ambush seven miles northwest of the camp but fought their way out, killing two warriors. Custer's supply train of sixteen wagons, returning from Fort Wallace, Kansas, was attacked near Black Butte Creek, Kansas, and killed several Indians. Lt. Kidder, ten troopers and scout Red Bead, carrying orders from Fort Sedgwick, Colorado, missed Custer's camp and were killed near Beaver Creek. Their mutilated bodies were found and buried by Custer on July 12. The flamboyant career of General Custer ended on the Little Big Horn, Montana, June 25, 1876.
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