The Death of Marshal Suverkrubbe

Suverkrubbe, 44, a World War I veteran and the town's marshal and night watchman for two years, saw two men tampering with an oil tank in the railroad yards and followed them into town. When they tried to break into a business he fired two warning shots; a citizen woken by the shots came to help, and both fired as the men fled. He was shot in the abdomen with a .45-caliber rifle. The men's car, stolen a week earlier in Murdo, South Dakota, turned up on Pierce Street in Omaha, and two ex-convicts were arrested for murder.

What the plaque says

The Death of Marshal Suverkrubbe About 3a.m. on December 5, 1932, Fort Calhoun marshal Albert Suverkrubbe was shot while trying to apprehend two men fleeing Kruse's Red and White Grocery at 106 S. Fourteenth Street. Suverkrubbe died from his wounds nine days later, leaving his wife, Frances, and two young sons. He was the only Washington County law enforcement officer to lose his life in the line of duty during the county's first 152 years (1855-2007). He made the ultimate sacrifice to keep the city safe. Fort Calhoun Enhancement Committee Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Atkinson State Historical Park — 0.6 mi
  The first U.S. Army post west of the Missouri, a garrison town of more than a thousand people on Council Bluff from 1820 to 1827, rebuilt on its own foundations.
• Winter Quarters and the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery — 8.6 mi
  The Latter-day Saint camp of 1846 to 1848 on Omaha land in what is now Florence, where hundreds died the first winter, and the cemetery and trail center beside it.
• Malcolm X Birthsite — 12 mi
  The North Omaha lot where Malcolm Little was born in May 1925 and his family was driven out by the Klan, saved by Rowena Moore and now planned as a cultural center.
• Joslyn Art Museum — 14 mi
  Omaha's free art museum, a 1931 Art Deco memorial with two modern pavilions, and the keeper of Karl Bodmer's watercolors from the upper Missouri in 1833 and 1834.

More markers nearby

• Fort Atkinson — 0.3 mi
• Fort Calhoun Schools at Washington Square — 0.3 mi
• Lewis and Clark Campsite: July 30-August 2, 1804 — 0.6 mi
• Fort Atkinson — 0.7 mi