Julie Davis
jdavis@cherryroad.com
Negotiating the treaty took five days. Restoring the monument took two years.
The Nebraska City Rotary Club kicked off its centennial celebration April 2 with a presentation on the Indian Treaty Monument north of town on Business Highway 75.
The noontime presentation by Randall Rehmeier and Sue Little, was followed by a 4:30 p.m. ribbon cutting at the monument, which members of the club recently restored.
Ratified Indian Treaty 304: Pawnee-Table Creek, Nebraska Territory, September 24, 1857 was signed by the Pawnees to help the tribe gain protection from the settlers moving into the territory from the Sioux, said Rehmeier.
It ceded all Pawnee lands to the United States with the exception of a reservation along the Loup River in Platte and Nance counties.
Sixteen chiefs from four Pawnee bands signed the treaty, said Rehmeier, who added that the chiefs’ names all again appear on the monument’s base.
Vandals broke out some of the carved stones and also removed a medallion that had been at the top of the monument when it was dedicated in 1933.
Rehmeier likened the reassembly of the monument base to assembling a jigsaw puzzle.
He visited several farms in the area—Don Krunk, McGinnis Farms, and Jeff Reese—with mason Rob Becker to find just the right size and shape of rock to fit into the spaces on the existing monument, and David Nasiba, Ryan Raabe, Kellen Sailors and Anna Andrew of Andrews Monument worked with Rehmeier to ensure the names were returned to the monument.
Securing an easement for the monument took a combined effort between Rehmeier, landowner Skip Hammond, and Otoe County Surveyor David Schmitz to ensure the Nebraska City Historical Society in charge of the monument and its ground going forward.
A selection of river rock, contributed by Concrete Industries, surrounds the monument’s base, and a new stone medallion by sculptor Ann Cunningham now tops off the monument.
Little and her husband Mike, along with Keep Nebraska City Beautiful, provided input and insight as the project went from idea to completion, said Rehmeier.
The restoration project got its start at a Rotary meeting with a program by Jeff Barnes on Nebraska City’s Monument Man, Ed Gregg, in March 2023.
Rehmeier said he raised his hand at the end of the program and suggested that the club look into restoring the Indian Treaty Monument.
The monument was made possible in 1935 when the Otoe County Board of Commissioners approved an application from the Otoe County Historical Monument Society for $50 that “assured completion of the monument begun three years ago by the society,” according to an Oct. 9, 1935 article in the Nebraska Daily News Press.
The article continued, “Land for the monument commemorating the signing of a treaty between Pawnee Indians and the white settlers was donated by Wm. H. Pitzer.”
“Boulders were collected by Ed. Gregg, who, with Robert Kregel, Herman Winkelman and Morton Hathaway were responsible for erection of the boulder and collected data,” the article continued. It concluded by noting that the Otoe County commissioners were permitted by state law to spend approximately $500 a year on historical monuments, this was the first request for funds for such a purpose in 1935.
The monument is not the only memorial to the treaty signing in Nebraska City.
In 1896, J. Sterling Morton commissioned a painting by W. Haskell Coffin that was to be presented to the Public Library when it was completed.
That four-foot by six-foot painting now hangs on the landing of the grand staircase at Arbor Lodge Mansion, where it was relocated after the mansion’s new addition was completed in 1935.
