Massacre Canyon Monument

In July 1873 about 450 Pawnee men, women and children left their reservation near present-day Genoa on the summer buffalo hunt, with a young agent, John Williamson, along. In a month they killed 655 bison. On the morning of August 5, camped near what is now Culbertson for a last hunt, they were attacked by a much larger force of Oglala and Brulé Lakota whose leaders included Little Wound, Spotted Tail and Two Strike. Sky Chief was among the first killed, butchering a bison above the canyon. As many as 150 Pawnee warriors, Curly Chief, Riding In and Ruling His Son among them, held the attackers off while the women and children fled down the six-mile canyon toward the Republican.

At least 75 Pawnee died, and Williamson later put the number at 156. They were buried in the canyon where they fell. Survivors made their way back to Genoa on foot and by rail, and in less than a year the Pawnee were leaving Nebraska for a reservation in Indian Territory. The Pawnee Nation calls the canyon the single most important Nebraska cultural site it has. In 2023 its historic preservation officer and the state archeologist recorded descendants' oral histories and surveyed the ground, which is all private land.

The monument, a 35-foot shaft of Minnesota granite and the first in Nebraska raised with a federal grant, was dedicated on September 26, 1930, and later moved to its present plot three miles east of Trenton on US-34. A visitor center beside it opens for the summer.