Historical Indian Villages

These sites located throughout Saunders County have been registered as National Historic Places because of their valuable data revealed from diggings.

CEDAR BLUFFS VICINITY – Pahuk Hill – Pahuk Hill is an impressive promontory overlooking the Platte River. It is one of the five sacred places of the Pawnee and is the best preserved. Pahuk was the most important gathering place of supernaturally endowed animals (Nahu’rak), venerated by the Pawnee.

LESHARA VICINITY –

Leshara Site – Leshara is a Pawnee village occupied immediately prior to the tribe’s removal to the Genoa reservation (1851-59). Observations on the village were made by a number of white travelers and early settlers, and it is depicted on an 1856 General Land Office survey plat map.

Woodcliff Site – During the 1850s the Skidi band of the Pawnee lived in a village near present day Fremont prior to their removal to the Genoa reservation. The Woodcliff Site is probably the cemetery for that community. It has the potential to provide valuable data for the study of late historic Pawnee mortuary customs, diet, and disease.

YUTAN VICINITY – Yutan Site – Spanish colonial correspondence from 1777 noting the existence of a large Oto Indian village "fifteen leagues" up the Platte River from the Missouri likely refers to the Yutan Site. The village was occupied until 1835, when the Oto moved down river in an effort to ease tensions with neighboring tribes and American citizens. The village was visited by a number of American travelers including John Irving in 1833, who provided descriptions of the village and specific lodge construction features. During the late eighteenth and nineteenth century Yutan would have been the first major Indian settlement seen by fur traders on the journey up the Platte to western bison hunting and beaver trapping ranges.