Softball gained popularity in Nebraska during the Great Depression and World War II as an athletic opportunity for girls and women. It continued to be a source of underappreciated community entertainment for decades after the war. Glenys Kay Figgins Cover (1939-1987) established Red Cloud's first Women and Girls Fast-Pitch Softball Program in 1973 with little to no funding and minimal coaching experience. They achieved a 68-game winning streak. Kay created athletic opportunities for women and girls in her community with the rallying cry "Let her fly!"
]]>The village of Cowles, founded in 1878 and incorporated in 1912, in 1913 approved a bond issue of $14,000 to construct a three-story brick schoolhouse on this site. It was completed in 1915. Classes were taught there to the eleventh grade level. The first twelfth grade class was graduated in 1920, when District 73 became Cowles Consolidated School, District K. Thereafter twelve grades were taught until the school was closed in 1959.
]]>District 35 provided education through the eighth grade from 1879 until 1958. The schoolhouse sat upon Felix Alexander Killough's homestead, filed January 2, 1879, which adjoined the homestead of his father, Thomas Donley Killough, filed June 9, 1875, in this same section.
The pupils were mostly Killoughs, especially in the later years. In 1928 the teacher was Loretta Britten and the pupils were Corrine, Donald, Esther, Fern, Pauline, and Thelma Killough. The school board was Samuel Killough, Thomas Donley Killough II, and Fred Schroeder.
]]>Three German Lutheran congregations, Zion, Salem, and Emmanuel, built churches in Stillwater Precinct, Webster County, Nebraska. Emmanuel was the last to build and the last to disband. Emmanuel Lutheran Church was formally dedicated on this site, July 16, 1905. Services were conducted in German in the morning, and in English that afternoon. Worship in both languages continued, with German being used less frequently in later years.
The first recorded activity in the church records was the baptism of August Friedrich Blobaum, March 13, 1904. The last recorded service was February 2, 1952, with Communion being received by Augusta Degener, Corrine Degener, Frank Degener, John F. Degener, Robert D. Degener, Anna Scheiding, Edwin Scheiding, Clarence Schutte, Harold Schutte, Emma Stumpenhorst, William Stumpenhorst, and Fred Sundermeir.
The Emmanuel Lutheran Church was an inspiring structure in its day with its Christian cross, atop a sixty-foot steeple, rising above the prairie farmlands. In 1952 the building was moved to Rosemont to serve another congregation. The cemetery remains as Emmanuel's legacy to the Stillwater community.
]]>Benjamin Wagoner homesteaded this land in 1870. In 1882 his widow, Catharine Fouts Wagoner, gave these 2 1/2 acres in his memory "for the benefit of the community at large and the religious people known as Brethren, or German Baptist, for the purpose of a free burial ground." The first trustees were Edwin Mohler, Henry Wolf, and James McCartney. In 1899 settlers of this community built the Garfield Brethren Church 3/4 mile west on the Noah Wagoner Homestead.
]]>Built ca. 1876, this is the house in which Willa Cather lived from 1884 to 1890. She describes it in "Old Mrs. Harris," in "The Best Years," and in this quotation from Song of the Lark:
"They turned into another street and saw before them lighted windows; a low story-and-a-half house, with wing built on at the right and a kitchen addition at the back, everything a little on the slant--roofs, windows, and doors."
Restored and donated by the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation.
]]>The St. Falconieri Catholic Church was built in 1883 of brick fired at Red Cloud. It served Red Cloud's Catholic congregation until 1906 when it was sold and converted into a private residence. Here, Annie Pavelka, the Antonia of Cather's well-loved novel My Antonia, was married, and here her first child was baptized. Restored and donated by the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation.
]]>Built in 1897, the main section of Red Cloud's Burlington Depot contained sleeping quarters on the second floor, and freight room, agent's office, and waiting room below. The building was moved here from its site near the tracks directly south of its present location. Depots and trains played a significant role in Willa Cather's life and writings, symbolizing both escape to the world and the door through which the world came to Red Cloud. Restored and donated by the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation.
]]>Built in 1884 on the corner of Second and Walnut, the Grace Protestant Episcopal Church was moved to its present location in 1891. The brick veneer was added sometime after 1922. Willa Cather joined this church in 1922 and remained a loyal member until her death in 1947. The stained glass window "The Good Shepherd" on the north wall was given by Cather in memory of her father. Restored and donated by the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation.
]]>Willa Cather first came to Webster County from Virginia in 1883 at the age of nine. The vast open prairies of Nebraska made a lasting impression on her. "This country was mostly wild pasture and as naked as the back of your hand. I was little and homesick and lonely and my mother was homesick and nobody paid any attention to us. So the country and I had it out together and by the end of the first autumn, that shaggy grass country had gripped me with a passion I have never been able to shake." Her life task became portraying how the pioneers tamed the wild land.
The 610 acre Willa Cather Memorial Prairie preserves an example of the native grassland that once covered Nebraska. Throughout the summer, numerous wildflowers grow amid tall native grasses in an ever changing display of color. Here, life typical of the prairie flourishes as it did before the first settlers came.
The prairie was purchased by the Nature Conservancy with a grant from the Woods Charitable Fund of Lincoln, Nebraska.
]]>On April 10, 1871, Acting Governor William James issued a proclamation calling for the organization of Webster County, with officials to be elected nine days later. The dugout of Silas Garber, later to serve as Nebraska's governor, was the polling place and forty-five votes were cast. A portion of Garber's claim, future Red Cloud, was voted the county seat.
When the first settlers of the county had arrived the previous year, the Republican Valley was the center of the West's great buffalo ranges, still traversed by Indians while on their tribal hunts. Within a very few years, however, those times were gone, and, with the arrival of the railroad in 1879, Webster County was rapidly settled by thousands of homesteaders, ending the frontier era.
Webster County is part of a prosperous mixed-farming region, with numerous irrigated farms, while the rolling divide country has provided rich lands for grazing. The faith of the pioneers, that Webster County would prove to be a wealthy, agricultural home, is proven by the surrounding countryside.
]]>Red Cloud, named for the Oglala Sioux chief, was founded early in 1871 on homestead land filed upon by Silas Garber and company July 17, 1870, at Beatrice, the nearest land office. It is one of the oldest communities in the Republican Valley. When Webster County was organized, Red Cloud was voted the county seat at the first county election, April 19, 1871. The election was held in the dugout of Silas Garber, Nebraska's governor, 1875-1879.
The mainline of the Burlington and Missouri River Railway reached here in 1879, accelerating immigration from the East and abroad, bringing together a colorful variety of cultural heritages. During the 1880's Red Cloud served as a division center for the railroad. The architectural design of Webster Street was established during that prosperous time when many of the first frame and log structures were replaced by more elaborate buildings of brick and stone.
Red Cloud was the childhood home of Willa Cather and it is known throughout the world as the setting for her six Nebraska novels and numerous short stories. The pioneers she knew in the town and on the nearby farms live on in her writings.
]]>Near here was a large permanent village of the Republican band of the Pawnee tribe which may have been occupied as early as 1777. On September 25, 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike visited the village with a small party of soldiers. He was greeted by Chief Characterish and 300 horsemen. The American party found that the village had been recently visited by a large Spanish expedition from Santa Fe. Pike set up camp with rifle pits on the north bank of the river opposite the village. He persuaded the Pawnee to lower a Spanish flag and raise the American flag. After holding peace conferences between the Osage, Kansa and Pawnee, Pike served notice the land was now a part of the United States and the Spanish would be forbidden in the area. On October 7th, the American party defied the warnings of the Pawnee not to travel toward the Spanish settlements. He and his party were captured by the Spanish but were eventually released. A short distance downstream from the village site is one of the five "sacred places" of the Pawnee. It is known as Pa-hur' to the Pawnee or "hill that points the way" and as Guide Rock to the whites.
]]>Here on the Divide between the Republican and the Little Blue lived some of the most courageous people of the frontier. Their fortunes and their loves live again in the writings of Willa Cather, daughter of the plains and interpreter of man's growth in these fields and in the valleys beyond. On this beautiful, ever-changing land, man fought to establish a home. In her vision of the plow against the sun, symbol of the beauty and importance of work, Willa Cather caught the eternal blending of earth and sky. Willa Cather wrote from her heart the wonderful tales she heard and the vital drama she saw in her growing years. In her books those she loved and admired live forever. My Antonia, earth mother of the plains, grew to maturity, loved, worked, and died within a few miles of this spot, yet she is known and loved all over the world. "The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman." The history of this land began in the heart of Willa Cather.
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