Indian Captives

Laura Roper and Isabelle Eubank came home through a Cheyenne peace effort. Black Kettle handed them, with two other captives, to Major Edward Wynkoop, who reported their recovery on September 18, 1864; ten weeks later Colorado troops attacked Black Kettle's village at Sand Creek. Isabelle died within months. Laura married twice and lived until 1930. Lucinda Eubank and her son were brought to Fort Laramie in May 1865 by the Oglala Two Face, who had most likely traded horses for them. On May 24 Colonel Thomas Moonlight had Two Face and Blackfoot hanged with trace chains.

What the plaque says

Indian Captives Sixteen-year-old Laura Roper, Mrs. Lucinda Eubanks, and children, Isabelle 3, and William 6 months, were captured by Indians at "The Narrows," Little Blue River, on Aug. 7, 1864. Laura and Isabelle were released to the Army at Hackberry Creek, KS, in Sept., 1864. Lucinda and baby, brutally treated by the Indians, were finally released near Fort Laramie, WY in May, 1865. This marker is dedicated to the memory of Laura Roper, the Eubanks, and pioneers of the Little Blue Valley. --Oregon Trail Days, Oak; Nuckolls County Historical Society; Challis Clark Pratt. Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pawnee Indian Museum State Historic Site — 23 mi
  A Kitkahahki Pawnee village of the late 1700s above the Republican, where a museum shelters a lodge the women built and a family bundle carried out of Massacre Canyon and given back to this place.

More markers nearby

• Original Townsite of Oak — 1.6 mi
• The Skirmish at Spring Creek — 6.2 mi
• 1864 Indian Raids — 11 mi
• Friedensau — 13 mi