Near this location, on September 26, 1907, 18-month old Gladys Dixon followed her elder sisters as they left for school. Their home being near the A. & N. track, the children usually took this route to town. A Burlington train was turning a sharp curve between the whistling post and the City Mills, coming from Milford.
Locomotive fireman, Marion Lux, looked up from the engine and saw the child on the track ahead. With no possibility to stop the train, he crawled out over the footboard to as near the front as he could, and just before the engine reached the child, threw himself forward, grasping the toddler and rolling down the embankment with the child in his arms.
In the leap from the train, Lux’s shirt was torn from his body and his back scalded from the engine steam. He carried the uninjured child to her mother and continued on his run to Lincoln. For his act of selfless courage, Marion Lux of Ravenna became Nebraska’s first recipient of a Silver Carnegie Hero Medal.
]]>In 1877 the Ponca Tribe and Chief Standing Bear were forced from their Nebraska homeland along the Niobrara River to an Oklahoma reservation. Hardships followed them during the more than 500-mile trek. Standing Bear’s daughter Prairie Flower died June 5 as the tribe traveled south through Seward County following the Big Blue River. A tornado hit the camp June 6 and fatally injured a grannddaughter. Milford citizens buried them in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, one-half mile north of here.
Nearly one quarter of the tribe died in Oklahoma, including Standing Bear’s son, Bear Shield, whose dying wish was to be buried along the Niobrara River. In 1879, Fort Omaha soldiers captured and imprisoned Standing Bear and 25 others after their desperate return to Nebraska.
Represented by Omaha attorneys, Standing Bear sued for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court. Judge Elmer S. Dundy ordered the Poncas’ release on May 12, 1879, ruling for the first time in U.S. history that an Indian was a person within the meaning of the law, a landmark in the struggle for Native rights.
]]>Founded by J. L Davison in 1864 near the limestone ford where the Nebraska City to Fort Kearny "Steam Wagon Road" crossed the Blue River, Milford is the oldest town in Seward County, serving as the first county seat until 1871. Milford was home to the famous Shogo mineral water springs and the Quenchaqua flour mills (1867-1934). In 1877 several hundred Ponca Indians passed through Milford when the government forced the tribe to move from their Nebraska homeland to an Oklahoma reservation. Prairie Flower, the daughter of Ponca Chief Standing Bear, died here on June 5, and was buried in an unmarked grave. A sanatorium built in 1889 became a state soldiers' and sailors' home from 1895 to 1939, now the location of Southeast Community College. The Nebraska Industrial Home for unwed mothers (1889-1953), the famed "Shogo Island" pleasure resort, and Cavalry Troop A of the Nebraska National Guard were all located in Milford. The town is the birthplace of Harry Culver, founder of Culver City, California.
]]>On January 2, 1863, Robert T. Gale filed the first homestead in Seward County, then "Greene County." A surveyor, he chose an irregular tract along Plum Creek that provided shelter from the north winds and fresh spring water year-round. Robert and Amelia Wooley Gale settled on the claim early in 1864. The following year the Gales and baby Clara Jane narrowly escaped icy flood waters that swept away their belongings and livestock.
Just as the nucleus of a town emerged, and before the claim was "proved up," Gale's health failed. He died March 25, 1868, and was buried on the northwest corner of the homestead. The Gales' baby, Alfred, died the following winter, also of tuberculosis. Gale's heirs received the patent to the homestead in 1869, and Amelia later moved to Oregon.
A century later, when the abandoned burial grounds were rediscovered and letters written by Amelia were found, the family's compelling story emerged. This marker honors Robert and Amelia Gale and all who braved hardships to make their homes on the Nebraska prairie.
]]>This millstone is believed to be from the gristmill built by William Smith in 1871 on the Big Blue River south of Beaver Crossing. W. J. Thompson took over the mill in 1873, and it continued to operate until about 1917.
Gristmills were an essential industry for the settlement of Nebraska, processing locally-grown grain into flour, cornmeal, and feed. There may have been as many as 160 water-powered mills in Nebraska in 1890, before their numbers began to decline.
]]>The original site of Beaver Crossing was located about three miles to the northwest. Here a trail from Nebraska City to Fort Kearny crossed Beaver Creek. John Leonard and Daniel Millspaugh were the first settlers in this area in 1862. Roland Reed established the first post office in January 1868.
About 1871 the post office was moved to the present-day town site where a flour mill had been built. During this decade many settlers arrived and Beaver Crossing grew and prospered. The town was incorporated in 1892.
This area was well known for its artesian wells. The first one was discovered in 1895. Wells in this park poured fresh water into what was once the largest swimming pool in the state. Other wells supplied the Smiley Botanical Gardens on the southeast edge of town. In the 1930s goldfish and water lilies were raised there commercially in fifty ponds. Later, the demands of irrigation dropped the water table and the artesian wells went dry.
]]>Since 1868, Seward has, with but few interruptions, sponsored a yearly 4th of July celebration which has gained national attention. This square, the original site of the festival, is today its focal point. Special trains once brought revelers here on the Fourth; today tens of thousands arrive by auto. With community young people having provided impetus for the celebration, Governor Exon in 173 designated Seward "Nebraska's Official 4th of July City." In 1976 American Revolution Bicentennial officials cited Seward for its patriotic observances. Name Greene in 1858, this county was re-christened in 1862 for Civil War Secretary of State William H. Seward. Platted in 1868, the city of Seward became the county seat in 1871. It is located at the confluence of the Big Blue River, Plum Creek, and Lincoln Creek. The Neo-classical Revival Courthouse was built in 1905 under supervision of architect George Berlinghof. Eastern farmers first settled the area, but beginning in the 1870's the population became infused with German and Czech elements. The fertile countryside is a diversified farming and livestock feeding area. Concordia Teachers College was established in Seward in 1894.
]]>Except for the occasional Indian or white hunting parties, the scenic valley of the Big Blue River was seldom visited prior to 1860. The establishment of the Nebraska City-Fort Kearny Cutoff in 1861 brought through the region thousands of overland freighting outfits, which crossed the river several miles south of here. Road Ranches were soon established along the trail, and scattered settlement began shortly thereafter. The Big Blue River played an important role in the history of the area and provided the necessary power for numerous water mills used in grinding grain for pioneer farmers. In the early years of the 20th Century, its waters provided energy for the first primitive electric plants. While spring floods are common in the area damage is usually minimal due in part to the limited drainage of the river. This pleasant, rural valley is only twenty miles west of Lincoln, the state capital of Nebraska. Those traveling east will soon see Nebraska's Capitol, the "Tower of the Plains," designed by Bertram Goodhue and recognized as one of the architectural masterpieces of the world. Little more than a cluster of homes on the prairie when chosen as the state capital in 1867, Lincoln has developed into a major Nebraska cultural and population center.
]]>This rest site is near the center of Nebraska's tall-grass prairie on the eastern edge of the hunting grounds once used by the Pawnee Indians. Nebraska's largest tribe, the Pawnee located villages on major area streams, including the Blue, Loup, and Platte Rivers. Wagon trains from Nebraska City on the Missouri River to frontier settlements and military posts farther west carried people and goods through the area beginning in the 1840's. The freighters' trail, known as the Nebraska City-Fort Kearny Cutoff, ran a few miles south of here. Frontier settlement began in the 1860's, Seward County was organized in 1865, and the countryside was rapidly colonized during the following decade. This fertile watershed of the Big Blue River attracted many German immigrants (including some by way Russia), as well as Scandinavians. Through the use of deep-well irrigation, the region was developed in recent decades into a major center of successful, intensive farming. For the next seventy miles, westbound travelers will notice the subtle changes in the landscape as the tall-grass prairie merges into the short-grass country of the semi-arid plains.
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