Japanese Hall was moved to the Legacy of the Plains Museum in 2019 from 1705 Avenue C, in Scottsbluff. Built by Japanese immigrants in 1928, the building served as a social hall, worship space, school, entertainment venue, and hub for the Japanese and Japanese American community for 90 years. Scottsbluff's downtown and surrounding blocks had Japanese-owned restaurants, a billiard hall, a Japanese mercantile, and a weekly Japanese newspaper. This marker commemorates the place, and the Japanese Immigrants of Nebraska and the High Plains.
]]>The treaty was proposed by former fur trader Thomas Fitzpatrick, Upper Platte Indian agent, supported by David D. Mitchell, superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis. The treaty provided that the government would give the tribes $50,000 a year in goods for 50 years for damages caused by emigrants bound for Oregon, California and Utah. In return the Indians would allow free passage on the emigrant trails, permit forts to be built on their land, and pledged peaceful settlement of intertribal disputes.
Signing were such chiefs as White Antelope (Cheyenne), Little Owl (Arapaho), Big Robber (Crow) and Conquering Bear, whom the whites persuaded the Sioux to elect as head chief. Assiniboine, Mandan, Gros Ventre and Arikara chiefs also signed. The Shoshone traveled over 400 miles but were not asked to sign because they were not from the Plains.
With few exceptions, the tribes honored the treaty until 1864, when the whites' demand for land pressured the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho into warfare, ending the hope for peace which had prompted "The Great Smoke."
]]>During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Forces operated a satellite airfield at this site. In the fall of 1942 twenty-eight farms were vacated so construction could begin. Some 600,000 cubic yards of concrete for three runways was poured in forty-five days. There were approximately 108 buildings on the ground including barracks, mess halls, officers' quarters, warehouses, a hanger, a camouflage instruction building, and a bombsight storage building. The first troops arrived in early December 1942. Initially air and ground crews of B-17 and B-24 bombers of the Second Air Force based in Casper, Wyoming, received final training here. In 1944 the Scottsbluff field became a satellite of the Alliance Army Air Field and the First Troop Carrier Command, training C-47 and glider crews. Aircraft and radio maintenance personnel also trained here. In 1947 the City of Scottsbluff bought the airfield for use as a municipal airport. Most of the buildings were sold and removed. Since 1970 the property has been operated by Scotts Bluff County.
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