LUSK - Learn more about the history of our area by attending a slide presentation and an all-day tour titled “The Indian Wars of Northwest Nebraska”. The talk in Lusk will be on May 24, 2023, at 6:00 p.m. at the Lusk library. In Crawford, the talk will be May 21 at 2:00 p.m. at the Crawford library. The tour is scheduled for June 17, 2023. The provided transportation will leave the Niobrara County High School parking lot at 8:00 a.m. and return around 4 or 5 p.m. Crawford tour participants will meet the Lusk participants at Fort Robinson.

Randy Kane, historian from Crawford, will do the slide and tour presentations. He has spent 37 years as a history interpreter with the National Park Service and has worked and volunteered at Fort Robinson since 2010. He has written several articles on the Indian wars that were published in the Nebraska History magazine.

The presentations will cover events that occurred in Dawes and Sioux Counties in the 1870s involving major figures in the Sioux and Cheyenne wars. These include Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Dull Knife, and Buffalo Bill Cody. The slide presentation will include the Flag Pole incident, the treaty of the Allison Commission, the “First Scalp for Custer”, the killing of Crazy Horse, and the Cheyenne Breakout. The tour will visit Camp (later Fort) Robinson, Red Cloud Agency, Warbonnet Creek, and the Council Tree.

The presentations at the libraries are free, but the cost for the tour is $20 per person. Reservations and payment are required by June 10, 2023. Call Leslie Stewart at 308-430-2464.

The presentations and tour are funded and sponsored by the Niobrara County Historical Society, the Niobrara County Library, the Niobrara County Library Foundation, and the Crawford Public Library.