The Pebble Creek Fight

Marion Littlefield, the man the plaque names as killed, was a twenty-one-year-old trapper. On June 13, 1937, the Burwell Wranglers Club dedicated a monument to him a few yards from where he fell. Truman Freeland, the valley's earliest preacher, who had arrived six hours behind Charley Jones in 1872, spoke at the unveiling a year before his own death; his diary entry of January 19, 1874, records the aftermath and says he had no part in the affair. Local history counts sixteen settlers in the pursuit. No account names the Lakota dead.

What the plaque says

The Pebble Creek Fight In 1872-73 white settlers were moving into the North Loup Valley. Their presence sparked occasional conflicts with Lakota Sioux wandering down from the north to hunt or raid the Pawnee Reservation near Genoa. On January 18, 1874, Sioux passing through this area with stolen Pawnee horses purport- edly took food, furs, and a cow from the homes of settlers and trappers, including the Colby and McClimans families. Early the next morning about a dozen men led by Charles ("Buckskin Charley") White went in pursuit, determined to recover the property or fight the Indians. The men found the Lakota camped on Pebble Creek. During a parley, the Indians refused to surrender anything of value and prepared to resist the whites, who fled to the shelter of the stream bank. In the half-hour fight that followed, Marion Littlefield was shot and killed. Indian casualties were estimated as three dead and several wounded. The settlers feared further confrontations and petitioned Congress for military protection. After receiving an appropriation, the army established Fort Hartsuff in the North Loup Valley on September 5, 1874. Garfield County Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Hartsuff State Historical Park — 6.7 mi
  A small infantry post of 1874 in the North Loup valley, built of local lime concrete on the raiding road between Lakota and Pawnee country, and kept nearly whole by eighty years of farming.

More markers nearby

• The Easter Blizzard of 1873 — steps away
• Garfield County — 0.9 mi
• Railroad Turntable, 1887-1983 — 1.2 mi
• Kamp Kaleo — 1.5 mi