Nebraska - 6 to 8 June 2014

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As we crossed the border into Nebraska we stopped at the Visitor Centre and chatted to Randy who worked part time whilst his wife was the local minister. The building was in the middle of nowhere but apparently used to be a chain burger-bar- not sure who ate there though as there did not seem to be any houses around for miles. It was different to most others VC we had been in, the layout was more like a ‘home’, including lounge sofas and lots of ornaments and memorabilia. We had coffee which was free and help yourself to what you want and we chatted to Randy for ages before heading off with a pile of brochures he insisted we would need about Nebraska and the area as well as some useful advice.





We were following the Satnav to our campsite but it could not locate the site and took us into ‘downtown’ Scotts Bluff where we stopped to try and see where we were. As we sat in the car we were approached by a local lady who was fascinated with our van. She chatted for a while but started to get quite excited when talking about the UK Royal Family (she had her own views on various members so we had to ‘steer her away from the topic’ but she continued on for quite a long time in any event!)





Quite a while later we asked her if she knew the location of our campground and she gave us some directions. We set off but soon became ‘lost’ again - out of nowhere this lady appeared again and told us to follow her in her car and she would direct us - a while later we arrived at what we thought was probably the campsite but she continued on so we followed her only to stop in the middle of nowhere! We got out and she said that we had arrived but we had obviously got our ‘wires’ crossed somewhere as she thought we were looking for a ‘trail’ not a ‘campsite’!!!!





After returning to the campsite we had just passed we decided it was not quite for us so we continued to another site in the town. This was a local council run site and had quite a few locals on long term stays. The space we were allocated was huge and for $14 we had, flushing toilets, showers, good wifi and the ‘hosts’ even brought us over some ‘free’ firewood. A little while later when Paul was lighting the fire a fellow camper came over to see if we wanted more wood - he had just chopped up a large log and was willing to share it with us - such friendly locals. That night we walked along the nearby North Platte River and saw a group of Red-Winged Blackbirds - like our UK blackbirds but with crimson red under their wings when they fly.





In the night we heard what we thought was a loud ‘lion’s roar’ and thought we were back in Africa. In the morning we heard it again but no, we have not gone mad - we were camped right next to a local small zoo… … …We later found out that the zoo is often referred to as 'the best little zoo in the west' and has lived up to that reputation by providing a comprehensive education on wildlife conservation, research, and recreation - quite a feat in such an isolated area.



In the great plains of Nebraska, 800 feet above the North Platte River, Scott’s Bluff stands tall, as it did when the Americans pioneers traveled in their covered wagons towards the promise of the west. We could see it from miles away as we followed the flat plains and it must have been a spectacular sight to those hardy pioneers crossing this country all those years ago. We stopped at the Oregon Trail Museum and Visitor Center which was built at the base of the Bluff and serves as a start for hiking tours around the area. We watched a short informative video about the human and natural history of the area before walking around the well laid out exhibits. The museum focused mainly on the westward expansion and the pioneers themselves as well as the drawings and paintings of William Henry Jackson and the geology and palaeontology of the region. William Jackson was an American painter, Civil War veteran, geological survey photographer and an explorer famous for his images of the American West the museum held a unique collection of watercolor paintings by this frontier photographer and artist which were truly outstanding. It was a really interesting museum to visit with just enough information but no ‘overload’ - but it would have been great to have gone back for another visit.





Scott Bluff towers alongside several different western expansion trails; the Oregon, California, Mormon, and Pony Express Trails. We were able to walk along the original Oregon Trail Pathway which was quite enlightening. Covered wagons marked the trailhead, and the walk included remnants of the original Oregon Trail itself - it was a truly interesting walk and visit to this part of Nebraska and we learned so much .



Out on the prairie wagons following the Oregon Trail spread out to avoid dust stirred up by wagons in front. But here at Mitchell Pass the emigrants encountered a difficult bottleneck where wagons had to squeeze through narrow ravines in single file. The clomping, scraping and grading of thousands of wagon wheels over the same place gradually engrained deep ruts into the soft sandstone. Today more than a century later we were able to still see these ruts in the ground.



On the way back we met some locals and their children who were all dressed in old pioneer clothing for their visit. They had with them a German exchange student and we chatted to her and them for a while before returning to the museum to chat to one of the rangers. He was really informative and told us a couple of local history stories which I detail below if you are interested then read on - otherwise skip to the end.



Hiram Scott Story

As you can guess Scotts Bluff was named after Hiram who was a fur trader in the area in about 1826 but little else is known about this mystery man. His name appears on the pay lists of the American Fur Company in 1827, where he was listed as a clerk and it is also known that his name does not appear in any of the company's papers after 1828 - apart from that not much else is known with any certainty about Hiram.



In the early days of the fur trade trappers travelled into the Far West to gather animal pelts. Beaver furs were especially popular for making men's hats which seems very strange today - do men still wear hats...... Muskrat, Rabbit, and Otter pelts were also sort after, but it was the beaver's fur which brought the ‘top dollar’. It was the seemingly endless supply of beaver pelts which drew young men such as Hiram Scott out into the frontier. As the business evolved, the fur companies realised that rather than send trappers out to catch and skin the beavers, it would be more efficient to obtain the pelts from the various Native American tribes in the West. In exchange for the furs, the companies would offer manufactured items such as pots and pans, bolts of cloth, knives, axes, and firearms - much sort after items the likes of which had never been seen before by some. These gatherings and exchanges of trade goods were known as rendezvous.



It is believed that Hiram was returning to St. Louis from a 1828 rendezvous when he died near the bluff which now bears his name.



Unfortunately, the details surrounding his death have been lost to history. One story says that he contacted a severe illness and died having been abandoned by two comrades and his skeleton was found on the other side of the river from where he was left, implying that he had somehow managed to cross to the opposite bank before he died. Another story says that he was supposedly left behind at the Laramie Fork by a larger party who feared for their lives due to starvation and the following summer his bones were found near the bluffs - 60 miles from where he had been left to die. Another story similar to the previous versions says that he had traversed 100 miles before dying near the bluffs. These stories were told and retold and after each telling took on new perspectives but there is no known fact of what actually happened to Hiram.





Almost immediately after his death though, the bluffs along the North Platte River came to be known as Scott's Bluffs. In 1830, the first wagons made the overland trip on the same route used by early fur traders like Hiram Scott, and the bluffs that bear his name served as a landmark for people making their way west. Hiram Scott's final resting place is not known and never will be. His remains were almost certainly found near the North Platte River, but the site has never been located and it is still not known why the bluffs were named after him. The story below of Rebecca Winters in the same area some couple of decades later is better recorded.



Rebecca Winters Story



After visiting the museum the ranger gave us direction to a historic gravesite located just off Highway 26, east of Scotts Bluff surrounded by protective green trees. The historical marker at the site says that the grave belongs to Rebecca Winters, one of the few people to be buried in a marked grave along the Mormon Trail. Rebecca is considered a symbol of the westward movement, one of hundreds of thousands who set out to make a new life for themselves, one of so many who sadly succumbed to illness along the way. The 50-year-old woman and her husband, also named Hiram, were traveling in 1852 with a Utah-bound wagon train when she took ill with cholera somewhere near Fort Kearney. She died near what is now Scotts Bluff on August 15, leaving behind five children between seven and 27 years old.





It is said that a close family friend stayed up that mournful night to make a grave marker out of an old wagon tyre, engraving the words, ‘Rebecca Winters, Aged 50 Years’ into the iron. For over 140 years, the simple marker stood unbothered, but because railroad tracks were laid only six feet from where the tyre was embedded, officials began to fear for visitors’ safety as well as the integrity of the grave. So, in 1995, with more than 100 of Winters’ descendants on hand, the body was exhumed and the grave moved 900 feet east to protect it and its visitors from potential harm involving the trains.



Scotts Bluff Museum



The museum in Scotts Bluff had many memorable stories of those hard times and you could spend a long time visiting this quiet peaceful place in Nebraska learning more of its eventful past. From 1841 to 1869 approximately 500,000 people like Rebecca made the emigration west to Oregon, California and Utah shaping those states for future generations.





Chimney Rock & Carhenge



The next day we left our ‘value for money’ campsite in Scotts Bluff and travelled further into Nebraksa to visit Chimney Rock. Chimney Rock is a prominent geological rock formation which rises nearly 300 feet above the surrounding valley. During the middle 19th century it served as a landmark along the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails, which ran along the north side of the rock. It is visible for many miles from the east but the rain had not stopped and although the landmark was just visible it was not worth the hike out to see it any closer. The nearby visitor centre was closed so we had to give the visit a miss which was a shame. In fact we had a very miserable day as we also did not get to see Carhenge either because we took a wrong turning a little further down the road. Carhenge, which replicates Stonehenge but with sculptures made from vintage American automobiles, painted gray to replicate Stonehenge was on our list of places to visit because we so love to visit Stonehenge in Wiltshire - maybe it was just as well we did not find the one in Nebraska as we may have been disappointed!!!!





Our journey continued along a very very straight and flat USA road for miles and before we knew it we had somehow crossed another state border, not that we saw any signs but we were now apparently in South Dakota - see you there … … …

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Highways and Bi-ways
We love road trips and you are on a great one.