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The 28th session of the Nebraska
Legislature introduced a bill authorizing the Board of Public Lands
and Buildings of the State of Nebraska to purchase and control a site
to erect a monument with appropriate inscriptions at or near Ft
Calhoun, Washington County, Nebraska to commemorate the place where
Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark landed and met with
the Otoe-Missouria Indians. The sum of $5,000 was appropriated for the
project.
 Mrs. Abraham Allee, State Regent
of the Daughters of the American Revolution, conceived the idea of a
boulder and worked with the Nebraska State Historical Society to bring
it to completion.
During the summer of 1904 a committee
representing four Nebraska chapters of the Daughters of the American
Revolution (the Omaha from Omaha, the Deborah Avery from Lincoln, the
Quivera from Fairbury and the Lewis and Clark from Fremont), made
final plans for a celebration on August 3, at which time they would
dedicate the marker commemorating the centennial of Lewis and Clark’s
council with the Indians on the Council Bluff. It was the first D.A.R.
marker to be placed in the State of Nebraska.
It was decided to place the monument in the yard
of the Ft. Calhoun public school (at 11th and Monroe Streets) within
100 feet of the railroad, in view of travelers. This is a short
distance from the probable site of the actual first council. After a
long search, a suitable boulder was found on the farm of Mr. F.
Lonsdale about two miles north of Lincoln. It is a beautiful bluish
pink Sioux Falls quartzite, weighing about seven tons. The boulder was
found resting on the hillside amid a mass of companion boulders and
gravel where it had been dropped by a melting glacier.
The boulder was engraved: 1804 – 1904—Lewis and
Clark. Daughters of the American Revolution, Sons of the American
Revolution and the State Historical Society of Nebraska.
The 30th Infantry Band from Fort Crook came by
special train with a battalion of United States Regulars. Mrs. S.B.
Pound of Lincoln, the retiring State Regent of the D.A.R., unveiled
the monument.
In 1919, when the centennial of Ft. Atkinson was celebrated, the
boulder was moved to its present location at West Market Square (15th
and Monroe Streets) and placed on the rock pedestal.
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150th Anniversary -- 1954 |
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Other scanned images Image 1
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-- these will be removed before we
publish nk
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