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The east entrance of Pioneers is guarded by a bronze buffalo, symbol of
the prairie when creatures of the plains drifted over her face scarcely
aware of the existence of human beings. Their cries, their calls, were
for themselves and the seasons. Yet they were not entirely alone. In and
out of their orbit moved the Indian, as drifting as were the birds and
the beasts. One day he might spread his camp in a valley, the smoke of
his campfire lifting to the heavens. In a month, perhaps, he was beyond
the horizon. The grasses rose slowly again and possession of the earth
came back to the buffalo and the deer, the coyotes and the meadow larks.
Then came the white man. An early Lancaster county settler, John S.
Gregory, wrote: “I reached the present site of Lincoln toward evening of
a warm day in September (1862). No one lived there, or had ever lived
there previous to that date. Herds of beautiful antelope gamboled over
its surface during the day and coyotes and wolves held possession during
the night.... About a mile west on Middle creek the smoke was rising
from a camp of Otoe Indians, and down in the bend of Oak creek, where
West Lincoln now stands, was a camp of about 100 Pawnee wigwams. I rode
over, and that night slept upon my blanket by the side of one of them.”
The placing of “The Smoke Signal” (by Ellis Burman) in Pioneers was a
suitable gesture. Its unveiling and dedication in 1935 was a
picturesque, even dramatic, occasion. More than 100 Indians attended the
ceremony. Chiefs of four Indian tribes which had roamed Nebraska sat
their horses thruout the dedication, grouped at the top of the rugged
hill which faces the west and the setting sun.