Magazine Article Review: Where Bellevue Began

 Where Bellevue Began: A Bluff-top trading post on the Missouri became Nebraska's oldest permanent community by Ron Soodalter with Chris Amundson, Nebraska Life Magazine, Flagship Publishing Inc., Timnath CO, March/April 2026, pp 24-29.

Lewis and Clark came through the Bellevue area in 1804.  In 1822 Joshua Pilcher built a trading post above the Missouri River in what would become Bellevue.  From this location it commanded a way to send goods up the Missouri, and also the Platte River which was a few miles to the south.  It was a trading post and a place where furs could be dried and prepared for market.  It became the hub for traders, company men and hunters.  Pawnee, Otoe and Omaha traded there.  Beaver built the Missouri Fur Company.  Beaver skin was durable, water proof, and well suited for hats.  The trading post supported the annual rendezvous which was to the west.  Goods would leave from Bellevue and then at the rendezvous they would be sold and traded, and beaver skin would come back to the trading post.  Bellevue would keep the trade moving as a hub for the business in St. Louis.  The trade business could be dangerous.  In 1823 fourteen men were killed and eleven wounded in South Dakota n the Missouri.  Pilcher also learned the same lesson in 1823.  Blackfeet attacked a caravan along the Yellowstone River and killed seven men.  This resulted in a loss of roerty of $15,000, valued today at $467,000.

The Pilcher site faltered, but Lucien Fontenelle purchased it in 1828.   By this time it had grown beyond a trading post.  It included separate lodgings for Otoe and Omaha.  It had smith shops, and a counsel meeting area and lodging for interpreters.  Karl Bodmer made a rendering of the trading post and surrounding buildings. Lucien Fontenele would sell the buildings to the federal government and it became the Indian agency.  The area continued to grow.  1855 Bellevue incorporated as a city.  1856 the first church still standing in Nebraska was built.  The major settlements located south of the old trading post.  This encroachment of people lead to the removal of Native American people to reservation.  The Omaha reservation is further north on the Missouri, the Pawnee in Oklahoma and the Otoe to the Nebraska/Kansas border but then again moved to Oklahoma.  Peter Sarpy also arrived and established a ferry at Bellevue as well as trading posts on both sides of the river.  

First Nebraska Territory Murder Was by a Doctor

 In the Nebraska Life Magazine for March April 2026 there is a note about a murder in Bellevue.  Dr Charles Henry was a physician and a land speculator in Bellevue in 1855.  He argued with George Hollister about property lines.  Henry shot him dead.  It seemed a clear case and he was arrested and confined in the blacksmith shop.  He was protected by guards form a lynch mob.  Cholera broke out about this time.  Many needed treated and Dr. Henry was lead form home to home to provide treatment.  He was under guard and providing treatment.  When his case came before the grand jury there were enough on the jury he had treated, and others as character witnesses the he was never convicted.  This was the first arrest for murder in the new Nebraska Territory.

There were two grand juries convened, and both failed to indict.  Another possible reason for this is there were groups of land speculators who were protecting their own.  However the story of the patients refusing to indict is a good one.  Henry relocated to Omaha where he became a prominent citizen and supporter of the Union in the Civil War.

African American Biography: Charley Willis: The Singing Cowboy

 Charley Willis was born a slave near Austin Texas.  After slavery he became a western Cowboy first in West Texas.  He worked breaking horses.  He later road the Chisholm Trail taking Texas cattle north to Kansas.  He was a singer and is credited with writing the song "Goodbye Old Paint."  This song is is now in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

Fort Crook; Now Offutt Air Force Base

 Fort Crook was the original name of the fort constructed south of Bellevue to replace fort Omaha in North Omaha.  It was named for General George Crook who had been the commander at Fort Omaha.  I took some pictures of the old for from the Fort Crook days.  There was a model in the Sarpy County History museum.  The fort was planned and announced in 1888 but construction did not begin until 1894.  Officers quarters were built on the west side of the parade grounds and the private quarters opposite on the east.  Troops began to arrive in 1896.  1920-24 the fort added an airfield and the fort was renamed Offutt for a WWI pilot named Lieutenant Jared Offutt.  During WWII the base became a large manufacturing plant for B-26 and B-29 bombers.  After WWII it housed the Strategic Air Command.

parade grounds

sergeant's row

Native American Biography: Zoey Roy, Spoken Word Music

 I was informed of Zoey Roy in the book Not My Princess.  She is a spoken word artist and poet and social activist.  She is from Canada.  She is of mixed descent, indigenous person from Canada.  She affiliates with the Peter Ballantyne Cree nation.  Through her spoken words she explores indigenous issues and colonization.

South Omaha Public Housing

 Omaha received a public grant for public housing in the South Omaha area and the Southside Terrace public housing was built in 1940.  They are located between R and W Streets between 29th and 30th. There were 51 barrack  style buildings.  These apartments housed low-income families and immigrant workers to the meat packing industry.  They had low rents and income requirements.  They are now being taken down and modern mixed-use housing is taking their place.

Book Review: The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse

 The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse: Bison Classic edition: Three eyewitness views by the Indian, Chief He Dog, the Indian-White, William Garnett, and the white doctor, Valentine McGillycuddy, Edited and with a new introduction by Robert A. Clark, Commentary by Carroll Friswold, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, c1976.

About a year after the events of the Little Big Horn and the death of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Crazy Horse's band of Oglala Lakota had had enough.  Food was scarce, his people were being constantly pursued, they were starving and freezing.  He surrendered in May of 1877.  There was considerable jealousy between different chiefs.  An Indian scout Frank Grouard misinterpreted a remark made by Crazy Horse.  He and a few of his warriors were being asked to help with the Nez Perce.  He responded passively saying he had had enough war, but if asked he would track the Nez Perce till they were all dead.  Grouard said Crazy Horse said we would hunt White people until they were all dead.  This interpretation caused considerable alarm among the officers.  There was worry Crazy Horse would leave to the north and go on the warpath again.  Grouard did not care for Crazy Horse.

General George Crook, on his way to a peace meeting was intercepted by Woman's Dress, an Indian scout and nephew or cousin to Chief Red Cloud.  Woman's Dress said he had heard Crazy Horse discussing plans to kill General Crook.  This was not true but the meeting was cancelled.  Orders were issued to arrest Crazy Horse.  But when they went to Crazy Horse's camp he was not there.  Word got to Crazy Horse that he was to go to Camp Robinson.  He did not understand that this was to be arrested an locked up.   

When he arrived, and they arrested him and lead him to the stockade, he began to protest.  He had a knife.  His friend Little Big Man tried to restrain Crazy Horse.  He was cut.  An enlisted soldier bayoneted Crazy Horse, causing the fatal wound.  The bayonet entered his kidney area and caused internal bleeding.  Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy attended to him in the adjutant's office.  He died several hours later at midnight.   

The last page of the book reveals that the enlisted soldier was William Gentles, an Irish enlisted man.  He was rushed out of camp to avoid any possible trouble.  Grouard also was whisked out of camp as well.  Gentles would die about a year later due to asthma.