Standing Bear and the Ponca Tribe

Milford's part in the burial is well remembered. A local woman made Prairie Flower a new dress, a carpenter built her coffin, and the carpenter's wife cleaned her body, and Standing Bear presided over a Christian funeral that cost $15. E. A. Howard, the removal agent, wrote that the town's kindness helped "ameliorate the grief of the husband and father." Biographer Joe Starita called it a hallmark moment of the Ponca trail of tears. In 2011 the Ponca planned a June 5 meal of buffalo corn soup, frybread and wojapi in the city park to honor Milford.

What the plaque says

Standing Bear and the Ponca Tribe In 1877 the Ponca Tribe and Chief Standing Bear were forced from their Nebraska homeland along the Niobrara River to an Oklahoma reservation. Hardships followed them during the more than 500-mile trek. Standing Bear's daughter Prairie Flower died June 5 as the tribe traveled south through Seward County following the Big Blue River. A tornado hit the camp June 6 and fatally injured a granddaughter. Milford citizens buried them in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, one- half mile north of here. Nearly one quarter of the tribe died in Oklahoma, including Standing Bear's son, Bear Shield, whose dying wish was to be buried along the Niobrara River. In 1879, Fort Omaha soldiers captured and imprisoned Standing Bear and 25 others after their desperate return to Nebraska. Represented by Omaha attorneys, Standing Bear sued for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court. Judge Elmer S. Dundy ordered the Poncas' release on May 12, 1879, ruling for the first time in U.S. history that an Indian was a person within the meaning of the law, a landmark in the struggle for Native rights. Seward County Friends of Standing Bear Seward County Visitors Committee Ponca Tribe of Nebraska Nebraska State Historical Society, 2017

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Nebraska State Capitol — 19 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

• The Big Blue River — steps away
• Tall Grass Prairie — 5.8 mi
• Plum Creek Prairie Historic Site — 5.8 mi
• Seward, 4th of July City — 6.3 mi