Genoa: 1857-1859

Ten years before the colony, the 1847 pioneer company came through. On April 22 it reached the abandoned Pawnee mission and government station about seven miles from the later Genoa, left in the fall of 1846 after raiders the diarists called Sioux drove the Pawnee off. The government buildings had been burned, but the mission's log houses stood among fenced fields, with plows and two stoves lying about. James Case of the company had worked there as government farmer the year before. Brigham Young let the company take hay and nothing else.

What the plaque says

Genoa: 1857-1859 Genoa, named by the Mormon Pioneers, was among several temporary settlements established by the Church of the Latter Day Saints in 1857, along the 1000-mile trail from Florence, Nebraska to Salt Lake City. These settlements were to serve as way- stations for the Brigham Young Express and Carrying Company, which had the government mail contract to Salt Lake City, and as rest and supply stops for Saints traveling across the plains. Mormons from St. Louis, Florence, and Alton, Illinois were called to establish the Genoa settlement in the spring of 1857, and the Colony arrived here on May 16. During the first year, 100 families settled at Genoa and began to fence the land and plant crops under the direction of Brother Allen, Mission president. A steam powered mill was constructed and log, frame, and sod structures were erected to house the settlers and their livestock. In the fall of 1859, the Mormon Colony was forced to abandon Genoa when the settlement became part of the newly created Pawnee Indian Reservation. Genoa served as the Pawnee Indian Agency until 1876, when the Pawnee were removed to the Indian Territory and the reservation lands offered for sale. City of Genoa Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Genoa U.S. Indian School Museum — 0.8 mi
  The surviving trades building of a federal boarding school that ran from 1884 to 1934 on the Pawnee Nation's last Nebraska land, where at least 86 children died and the cemetery is still lost.

More markers nearby

• Pawnee — steps away
• West Hill Community — 7.8 mi
• The Lincoln Highway-Gardiner Station Section — 10 mi
• St. Edward — 11 mi