Discover the untold story of the Buffalo Soldiers — African American members of the 9th and 10th Cavalry — who served at Fort Robinson and Fort Niobrara after the Civil War. Despite facing systemic racism, these troopers helped build the western frontier, earned multiple Medals of Honor, and challenged military traditions.
The Cheyenne Breakout involved over 140 Northern Cheyenne held at Fort Robinson who, denied the right to return north and confined without basic necessities, launched a desperate escape on January 9, 1879. This resulted in a brutal clash leading to numerous deaths among both the Cheyenne and U.S. soldiers—one of the darkest, yet pivotal, events of the Indian Wars in Nebraska.
Mni Akuwin’s body rested, undisturbed, on this platform until 1876, when Spotted Tail had her remains moved from Fort Laramie and buried at what is now the Spotted Tail Cemetery in Rosebud, South Dakota.
While visiting Fort Laramie, take a detour to view another facet of its long and fascinating history at a lesser-known and more scandalous slice of Fort Laramie.
Gering, Nebraska is one of those places where the landscape does most of the talking. The town sits in western Nebraska, close against the bluffs, prairie, river valley, and old overland trail country that helped shape the American West.
Gering, Nebraska sits at the foot of Scotts Bluff National Monument, in the heart of the North Platte Valley, where the prairie begins to rise into bluffs, buttes, ridges, and old trail country. It is not a large city, and that is part of its value.
