Many explorers and traders visited this spot before 1800. Nearby, in 1795, trader James Mackay built a short-lived trading post for Spanish St. Louis traders, naming it Fort Charles in honor of the king of Spain.
The Lewis and Clark expedition visited the village August 13, 1804, but the Omaha people were away on an extended buffalo hunt. The explorers stayed near the site for a week and held a conference with three chiefs of the Oto tribe who had come to make peace with the absent Omaha. By then the village was in decline. In 1800, smallpox killed an estimated 400 residents, including the famous Chief Blackbird. Afterward the village played a diminished role in the struggle for control of the Missouri Valley and the Plains beyond. It was abandoned in 1845.
]]>This hospital was built in 1912 under the guidance of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American woman physician, with the financial support of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions and other donors. It served both Native American and white people. In 1988 the Susan La Flesche Picotte Center was established here to commemorate Dr. Picotte as a model student, servant, healer, and leader. The hospital was named a National Historic Landmark in 1993.
]]>This hospital is named in honor of the first Native American woman physician. Dr. Picotte (1865-1915) was the daughter of Mary Gale and Iron Eye, also known as Joseph La Flesche, the last traditionally recognized chief of the Omaha tribe. She was educated at the Elizabeth Institute for Young Women (Virginia) and The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she graduated first in her class in 1889. She returned to the Omaha Reservation to serve both the Native American and white communities as a physician, civic leader, Native American rights activist, and outspoken advocate of public health and sanitation. A dedicated physician despite a painful disease that diminished her own health, Dr. Picotte was known for keeping a lighted lamp in the window of her home to welcome patients in the night. In 1913 she fulfilled her goal of establishing a hospital to serve the community of Walthill and surrounding area. The hospital, which now houses the Susan La Flesche Picotte Center, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and named a National Historic Landmark in 1993.
]]>This was the homeland of the Omaha Tribe long before white settlers came to the Great Plains. By 1750, the Omaha occupied a large region in northeastern Nebraska and northwestern Iowa. The name "Omaha" means "those going against the wind or current" and may refer to a traditional migration up the Missouri River by the ancestors of the present tribe. Lewis and Clark, in 1804, recorded that the Omaha lived here and noted the grave of Chief Blackbird. By a treaty in 1854, the Omaha gave up much of their territory, except for the area of the present reservation. The Omaha were a peaceful people who lived by agriculture and hunting. During the trying years in the nineteenth century, they were guided by such forward-looking and influential leaders as Big Elk and Joseph La Flesche (Iron Eye). The tribe never took up arms against the flood of white settlers. A number of Omaha served in Nebraska military units as early as the Civil War. Today, the Omaha people continue to live on their traditional homelands where their ancestors farmed, hunted, and are buried.
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