Geological Survey Bulletin 612 Guidebook of the Western United States: Part B

SHEET No. 6. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Beyond Dexter the train passes the station called Paxton before reaching the town of Ogalalla.

Ogalalla (see sheet 6, p. 34) is a name used by the Brule Sioux, a powerful and warlike tribe which under Chief Spotted Tail is said to have included 10,000 warriors. About 25 miles northwest of the town is Ash Hollow, where Gen. Harney defeated these Indians in 1859. In the early days of the Union Pacific Railroad Ogalalla was notorious for its lawlessness and for the pranks of cowboys. It was the point to which great herds of Texas cattle were driven across Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado, to be loaded on the cars for shipment to the eastern markets.

The town lies between the river channel and the rocky bluffs, which are well exposed for several miles to the east. Although the river bed is dry most of the year water can always be found in the sand just below the surface. This supply has been utilized for irrigation at Ogalalla by means of an underflow channel or underground drain into which the water finds its way, to emerge farther downstream upon the lands to be irrigated. The bluffs consist of beds of sand and gravel cemented together in some places into a relatively hard rock, locally known as "mortar beds." This name is expressive of the appearance and character of the rock, which resembles masses of sand and pebbles mixed with mortar. In these rocks are found fossil bones and teeth of extinct mammals. The rocks constitute the Ogalalla formation.¹

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¹The Ogalalla formation consists mainly of sand and gravel, cemented in some places by carbonate of lime into a resistant conglomerate. It crops out along the Union Pacific Railroad as far west as Pine Bluff and occurs in large areas in western Kansas and Nebraska and eastern Colorado. This formation is widely distributed over the Great Plains. Along the Union Pacific it lies on the Brule clay, a formation of Oligocene (Tertiary) age, the intervening formations being absent here. Its relations are indicated in the following table:

Succession of rocks exposed in central and western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming.

Period.	Epoch.	Life.	Group and formation.
Quaternary.	Recent.	Age of man.	Flood-plain deposits.
	Pleistocene (Great Ice Age.)		Loess and gravel.
Tertiary.	Pliocene.	Age of mammals.	Ogalalla formation.
	Miocene.
			Arikaree formation.
			Gering formation.
	Oligocene.		White River group: Brule clay. Chadron formation.

The Ogalalla formation is overlain by coarse sand and gravel similar to that in the river bed at the present time, and this in turn is covered with the loess that clothes the highlands. The relations are indicated by the sketch profile, figure 5.

FIGURE 5.—Sketch profile of the bluffs near Brule, Nebr., showing relation of the Ogalalla formation to the overlying beds of coarse sand and gravel, on which rest thick beds of loess.

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The village of Brule is named for the Brule Sioux Indians, who once inhabited this region. The French word brulé, which means burnt, seems to have been applied by the early French Canadian trappers to these Indians because of the burnt appearance of their painted faces. Also, for some reason not now known, the Indians called themselves "The Burned Thighs."

Four miles west of the town is California Hill, where the original California trail left the South Platte and crossed the low table-land to North Platte River. Until 1860 the emigrants went up this river around the north end of the Laramie Mountains and over the Continental Divide at South Pass. But when the United States soldiers were called east at the beginning of the Civil War the northern Indians became so aggressive that emigrants chose the less dangerous route up the South Platte Valley and through southern Wyoming. It was this southern fork of the Overland Trail that the Union Pacific followed and that recently has been chosen for the Lincoln Highway.¹

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¹The Lincoln Highway, designed as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln. is to be an improved thoroughfare extending across the continent from New York to San Francisco by the shortest practicable route. It will be 3,389 miles long and will traverse 13 States. The route was laid out and announced by proclamation in 1913 by the Lincoln Highway Association, whose headquarters are in Detroit, Mich., and the work of improving it is progressing rapidly under the direction of local committees. The distinctive red, white, and blue pole markers now cover about 90 per cent of the route, which is already used by numerous touring parties. Between Omaha and San Francisco it follows the Overland Trail.

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Near Big Springs, as the name implies, there are large springs of water, which issue from the bluffs to the right (north) of the station. Here in 1877 there was a bold train robbery, after which, by an equally bold movement of the authorities, the robbers were overtaken and killed in a fight. Geologically the place is of interest as marking the western limit of the thick loess and underlying gravels previously described. North of Big Springs these deposits terminate by abutting against a sharp rise of the Ogalalla formation, and farther west this formation occupies the surface. About 8 miles west of this station the road dips southward into Colorado, in which it runs for 10 miles before returning to Nebraska.

At Julesburg, in northeastern Colorado, the Union Pacific Railroad forks, one branch extending up South Platte River to Denver and the other or main line turning northwestward up Lodgepole Creek. At this point passengers intending to travel by way of the scenic route of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad through the Rocky Mountains take the Denver branch.

Gen. Dodge writes:

No town on the western plains has had a more checkered or exciting history than has Julesburg. It has been built on four different sites. In the days of the overland emigration a fort was established here and garrisoned with soldiers to protect travelers from the Indians. Old Julesburg, the first, was located about 1 mile east of the fort, on the south bank of the river at the old ford crossing. It was sacked and burned by the Indians February 2, 1865. In July following the great Sioux war broke out, and from that time on till peace was declared there was more Indian fighting in this vicinity than at any other station along the Platte Valley. During these times Maj. O'Brien says buffalo were more plentiful on the plains around Julesburg than the vast herds of native cattle were in later years. * * *

A second Julesburg was built 4 miles east of the fort. This was moved to the north side of the river, where the town of Weir now stands, and at one time was the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad and contained 7,000 people. Here the desperado element held sway until the better class of citizens organized themselves into a vigilance committee and by their just but necessarily severe verdicts and punishments rid the town of these lawless frontiermen and established a peaceful government.

At that time an Indian would trade a buffalo robe for a cup of sugar or a yard of red flannel. Buffalo skulls were used as tablets and signposts along the trail. A skull may be seen to-day in the Commercial Club in Salt Lake City with the inscription, "Pioneers camped here June 3, 1847, making fifteen miles a day; all well. Brigham Young."

Julesburg was an important stage station on the Overland Route in 1865 and as a supply point was the subject of much attention from the Indians. The station was named after one Jules, agent for Ben Holladay's stage line. He was killed by J. A. Slade, a noted desperado, who fought both for and against law and order and whose career is set forth in Mark Twain's "Roughing it."

FIGURE 6.—Typical sand dune with blow-out in its top, illustrating the depressions formed by the wind in the sand-dune country, where the sand is loose enough to be easily shifted.

Just beyond Julesburg the main line leaves the South Platte Valley and, turning northward up Lodgepole Creek, reenters Nebraska. At the turn of the road near Weir is a group of sand hills showing characteristic blow-outs¹ or hollows formed by the wind. (See fig. 6.) Lodgepole Creek takes its name from the fact that here the Indians formerly obtained the poles about which they stretched the skins or canvas to form their tents or tepees. Very little timber can be seen now in any part of the valley that is traversed by the Union Pacific. The train passes several stations and small towns—Weir, Ralton, Chappell, Perdu, Lodgepole, Sunol, and Colton—between Julesburg and Sidney.

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¹These blow-outs, some of which occur in the tops of the hills like craters in a volcano, are produced by the wind wherever it gets a chance to lift the sand. The exposed tops of the dunes are especially favorable places. The protecting cover of growing vegetation becomes broken, perhaps by a badger burrowing out a home for his family or by a coyote digging out a gopher for his breakfast. The wind blows out the loose sand, the sides of the hole cave in and make more loose sand to be blown out, and this process goes on until the blow-out is so deep that the wind can no longer lift the sand over its rim.

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