Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Historical Markers, need to stop more

Was running around Kansas late last week and stopped for this Historical Marker. I really need to slow down and stop more. I find these very interesting. Some great ones up in SW Nebraska too. George Washington Carver, great American.

I need to stop at more myself.

The coteau (Coteau des Prairies - hills on the prairie - named by the explorer Nicollet) can be deadly. Seeing how we're expecting sizable snow this seems appropriate, a historical marker about 6 miles west of town. Two Sisters

Inscription. On a pleasant winter day, January 6, 1903, Knut Throndson, an 1892 homesteader from Hellingdal, Norway, decided to visit his closest neighbors, Tobias and Bertha Herigstad, who lived less than a quarter mile east of this spot. Knut's wife, Caroline, remained at home with three small children, while the older daughters Theoline Age 13, and Menne, age 15, accompanied their father on the sleigh. Returning home late in the day, they were caught in a sudden blizzard. The sled runner hit a rock and broke. Knut unhitched the team from the sleigh and told each daughter to hold the horse's tails as he held the reins of the team. They struggled through the blinding storm.

Arriving home, the father discovered both his daughters missing. He ran back to his neighbor's homestead, shouting their names all the way. Knut and Tobias searched frantically all night in the storm. When daylight came they found the frozen bodies of Theoline and Menne four hundred yards from Tobias Herrigstad's home.

Over the past 100 years of Herigstad Pass history, other travelers have recited many fortunate stories of being rescued from winter storms on the Coteau des Prairies by the hospitality of the Herigstad family. The tragic legacy of the Two Sisters lives on, reminding travelers to be prepared for winter storms.

Get the app. Have it on my android and it's great on road trips.

Haven't heard of it. What's it called?

Used to hunt an old farmstead of some historical significance.
They had a "hysterical marker" out front (what my mom calls em).

As a kid, we'd see em driving down the road, turn around and go check em out.
Mom was big into that stuff.

There is a historical marker near my house for White's Station.

https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMD595_Whites_Station

White had an outlying settlement on the north side of what is now Cincinnati. I had not known about this settlement, so I dug in. I found a whopping good story about an Indian attack in the aftermath of Harmar's Massacre. I ended up using the gist of the plot as an introduction to a novella I wrote a few years ago.

The Glenfield


It's a story of boy's first whitetail-- the indian attack is just part of the introduction.

Bottom line: You bet I read those signs. You never know what you're going to find.

We have a good example of fake news on a 'historical' monument not too far from here - The Almo (Idaho) Massacre. Supposedly, Shoshoni indians wiped out 300 immigrants on the California trail in a prolonged battle. The 1st written record of it was written 65 years after the fact. The author said he saw trenches that had been dug around the wagons...65 years earlier. He gave the name of another witness who turned out to be 14 years old and living in Ogden, UT when it was supposed to have happened. There's no other evidence of such a battle.

Every little skirmish with Indians in those days made all the news but how could reporters miss a major one like that? That would have been one of the biggest Indian battles of all time, putting the Little Bighorn to shame.

Historians have requested that the town of Almo remove the monument but last time I was through there a few years ago it was still there. Almo is a microscopic town and this is their only claim to fame.

I read a biography of GWC many years ago. As I recall, it was a great read. He was a genius!

there's a covered dome of home made peanut butter cookies on the kitchen island right now

Guess we'd all be eating dandelions if it weren't for him.

Agreed... I love to read those when I come across 'em..

I like p-nut butter!

Cool stuff folks.

Here's one in my area. On Fandango Pass going over the Warner Mountains:







The E Clampus Vitus plaque was a bonus I wasn't expecting to see.

Geno

Maybe just some poke salad cookies?

Geno

growing up in Virginia, in my youth historical markers were about every 5 feet it seemed.. at a very young age, that is what got me so interested in history..
and also heritage....I'll usually stop at any one of them I see... in my travels back east and in the midwest, a lot of time over rural areas, I'll get off the interstate and take the old US routes...

heading east bound, or west bound from back east... I'll take those old US routes, across Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska.. most of the time I don't need to make interstate kind of time...those are the places you usually find these places...and find what is left of non interstate America...

a lot of these places, I even take routes that are now local routes, decommissioned old US Hwys...

Last year or the year before coming back from a Campfire Get Together in Arizona, North out of Vegas, I took old US 93 up the east side of Nevada instead of US 95 up the west side of the state...my reason for doing so, is once US 93 hit old US 50, I took that 250 miles west across Nevada... saw somewhere US50 was in a magazine article.. and the State of Nevada markets it as "The Loneliest Highway in America" for potential tourists...it was a major road before I 80 was put thru Nevada....with old US 40 to the north...US 40 is gone, US 50 isn't.. like 5 places you could call towns on the entire route across most of Nevada.. but those historical markers like above.... they were a dime a dozen.. even remains of some of the old Pony Express Stations and later stage coach lines....the walls and trenches at them still there... from the days the Indians were still around and attacked any time they came across the White Man.....

Heck on the old roads even done in California you find them.. there was one I found in the weeds, or a pull off area, just a few miles south of the Oregon line and right off of I 5.. it was what was once old US 99 northbound coming out of Hilt CA.....it was erected in 1944 according to the marker.. Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway.. No California Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy.... in their political climate down in CA now... you can imagine why it was removed once someone with some power on the Hwy Dept had it removed....and that was only within the last few years it was removed...

We have a nation full of history of all types....too many people are clueless on it anymore... Interstates are a good reason why...

I'd bet a web site of just old Historical signs like Geno posted above would have a lot of hits.. at least of some of we older folks, who still remember they exist and love the history of our nation...

heck Geno... in my travels over that way, I found an old sign off of a wagon....said "We don't rent pigs" on it....

wonder what that was about?

Interesting John,

Maybe they used 'em for rooting up a pasture to turn the soil?

Can't imagine any other reason to "rent a pig". (Slumlord or rene will be along soon with a reason I'm sure )

Geno

Didn't by chance find the part that read "Hat Creek Cattle Company"
did you?

Or this part of the sign....

"Uva uvam vivendo varia fit"
??

George Washington Carver settled in my home town of Winterset Iowa. He lived in the basement of the First Baptist Church for a year and also lived at the Arcade Hotel just off the square in downtown Winterset. He attended college in Indianola Iowa and then transferred to Iowa State. The Arcade and First Baptist Church are both gone but we have a small park dedicated to him by the Fire Station that is built where the Arcade stood. This is by the way only 2 blocks from John Wayne's birthplace home and Museum.

kwg