Plum Creek Prairie Historic Site

Amelia's own letters survive at History Nebraska, in the Shaw-Gale-Noxon family papers. Writing between 1864 and 1868 to her sister-in-law, Margaret Shaw Gale, she told of her infant daughter Clara, of dealings with the Pawnee, and of making butter and selling it, with chickens, in town. The collection's finding aid says a homeopathic doctor's remedies could not cure Robert's consumption. Amelia then married Stephen C. Ross, who had helped nurse the sick and had rented space in the couple's home while Robert was alive.

What the plaque says

Plum Creek Prairie Historic Site On January 2, 1863, Robert T. Gale filed the first home- stead in Seward County, then "Greene County." A surveyor, he chose an irregular tract along Plum Creek that provided shelter from the north winds and fresh spring water year- round. Robert and Amelia Wooley Gale settled on the claim early in 1864. The following year the Gales and baby Clara Jane narrowly escaped icy flood waters that swept away their belongings and livestock. Just as the nucleus of a town emerged, and before the claim was "proved up," Gale's health failed. He died March 25, 1868, and was buried on the northwest corner of the homestead. The Gales' baby, Alfred, died the following winter, also of tuberculosis. Gale's heirs received the patent to the home- stead in 1869, and Amelia later moved to Oregon. A century later, when the abandoned burial grounds were rediscovered and letters written by Amelia were found, the family's compelling story emerged. This marker honors Robert and Amelia Gale and all who braved hardships to make their homes on the Nebraska prairie. Seward Area Chamber of Commerce Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Nebraska State Capitol — 21 mi
  Bertram Goodhue's 400-foot tower on the prairie, built in four phases from 1922 to 1932 and paid off on completion, home of the only one-house legislature in the country.

More markers nearby

• Seward, 4th of July City — 0.7 mi
• The Big Blue River — 5.8 mi
• Standing Bear and the Ponca Tribe — 5.8 mi
• Tall Grass Prairie — 7.0 mi