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