Pawnee City

The first governor the plaque names left office in disgrace. David Butler, a Pawnee City cattle trader before his 1861 election to the territorial legislature, faced eleven articles of impeachment in his third term. The state senate convicted him only on the first, the use of about $16,000 from the state school fund to buy lots in Lincoln, and he was removed on June 2, 1871, the only Nebraska governor impeached. The proceedings were removed from his record in 1877, voters sent him to the state senate in 1882, and he died in Pawnee City in 1891.

What the plaque says

Pawnee City Pawnee City, the county seat of Pawnee County, was platted and the first lots were sold in the spring of 1857. The county, named for the Pawnee Indians who lived in Nebraska for generations, was defined by the territorial legislature on March 3, 1855. This site was designated as the county seat when the county was organized at a November 4, 1856, election. A per- manent courthouse of limestone construction was completed in 1869. Pawnee City's population was 763 by 1880. A disastrous fire in August of 1881 destroyed two- thirds of the business district, which was rebuilt primarily with fireproof construction during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fifty-six structures in a six-block area, including the 1911 county courthouse, are included within the Pawnee City Historic Business District listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. Pawnee City has been home to several notable individuals including Nebraska's first state governor David Butler, U.S. Senator Kenneth Wherry, silent film legend Harold Lloyd, TV's "Irish" McCalla, who portrayed "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle," and comedian Dan Whitney, better known as "Larry the Cable Guy." Promoters of Pawnee City Nebraska State Historical Society, 2010

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Village of Steinauer — 6.7 mi
• Humboldt Commercial Historic District — 12 mi
• Tecumseh — 18 mi
• The Oto and Missouri Agency — 23 mi