Name: Rawhide Creek
County: Goshen
Authority Name:
GNIS Entry
Longitude: 1041911W
Latitude: 420556N
Legal Description:
Elevation: 4134/1260
(ft/m)
Feature Type: Stream
Origin of Name:
Favorite camping and hunting ground of the Indians to which a party of eastern emigrants traveled in the early days. Among them was a young man who bragged that he intended to kill a Indian at his first opportunity. He was warned by his own party against the folly of the act, but to no purpose. He completed his ambition and brought the Indians down on the party at once. They surrounded and halted the caravan and demanded that the murderer be turned over to them. With no alternative, the party complied with the demand. Returning to the Buttes with their captive, the Indians skinned him alive and stretched the raw hide in the sun to dry.
Source: WPA
His (Mr. Hi B. Kelly) story as to the name of Rawhide Buttes was, about as I (George Lathrop) recollect it, this way: A young man from Pike County, Missouri, had boasted that he would shoot the first Indian he saw on the plains. The young fellow had forgotten about it for the first month from the Missouri River. On his attention being called to his boast one day about the first of June, 1849, near the mouth of Rawhide Creek he saw a camp of a few Indians on the Platte River and the d--n fool shot one of them. That caused a lot of trouble as the Indians demanded the young man at once, else they would attack the train, consisting of some thirty wagons of California gold hunters, men and women. The man was surrendered to the Indians who, in broad daylight, tied and skinned him alive. It seems that while the poor fellow fainted a number of times he lived till they had him nearly skinned. That, Hi said, was what originated the name "Rawhide." I tell you a fellow gets tired of telling about himself, and this story about the Indians skinning the fellow was Hi Kelly's yarn.
Trenholm, Footprints
Other Names:
Alternative Spellings:
History:
Stories:
Maps:
1:24000 Quadrangle: Cottier
Newspapers:
More Information:
Information on the Legend of Rawhide
http://www.niobraracountylibrary.org/history/index.php?id=42
Pictures: