Across the Fence; The Pawnee on Pumpkin Creek

Long before the early trappers,

traders and explorers

ventured into the Great

Plains the Pawnee claimed

a territory that included

more than half of what would

someday be called Nebraska.

From the fork of the Loup

and the North Platte Rivers,

west to the confluence of the

North and South Platte their

hunting grounds covered an

expanse of land that stretched

from present day Ogallala

to Lincoln. Their northern

boundaries reached into the

Badlands of the Dakotas and

lurched southward across

the Republican to the southern

banks of the Smoky Hill

River of central Kansas. At

this time the Pawnee peo...