Governor Frederick Valdemar Erastus Peterson

The rescue the plaque credits to Peterson was run from a command post in the Capitol basement. By the fourth week of January 1949, some two million cattle and sheep were snowbound in Nebraska and nearby areas. The governor declared an emergency across most of the state, where counties lacked the money and equipment to open roads. On January 28, Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Pick was named to direct Operation Snowbound, and Fifth Army bulldozers and weasels moved in. In twenty-three days, History Nebraska counts, it opened 87,073 miles of road and freed 152,196 people from snowbound homes.

What the plaque says

Governor Frederick Valdemar Erastus Peterson Val Peterson was born July 18, 1903, in the Oakland Swedish Lutheran Church parsonage, where his grandfather R.N. Swanberg was the pastor. Returning to live in Oakland at age fourteen, Peterson kept busy with school activities and various jobs, including work as a "printer's devil" for the Oakland Independent newspaper. He attended Wayne State Teachers College before earning a master's degree in political science from the University of Nebraska. He was a school teacher and superintendent, and published the Elgin Review newspaper. During World War II he served as an Army Air Corps lieutenant colonel, leading flight operations in the China/Bermuda region. Peterson was elected Nebraska's 27th governor in 1946, serving three two-year terms. He initiated Operation Snowbound during the Blizzard of 1949. Peterson served in the Eisenhower administration as Federal Civil Defense Administrator, 1953-57, and as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, 1957-61. He established Oakland's sister city relationship with Hammenhog, Sweden. As U.S. Ambassador to Finland, 1969-72, he participated in the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) talks. He died October 17, 1983. Swedish Heritage Center Nebraska State Historical Society, 2017

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blackbird Scenic Overlook — 20 mi
  A pull-off on US-75 at Macy on the Umóⁿhoⁿ reservation, looking over the Missouri valley toward the hill where Wazhiⁿga' sabe, Blackbird, was buried after the smallpox of 1800.

More markers nearby

• The Founding of Oakland — 0.8 mi
• Victor Colson Homestead — 1.1 mi
• The Logan Creek Site — 2.4 mi
• Lyons — 7.0 mi