Tales from Frontier Courtrooms
Years before Nebraska counties built their grand courthouses, courts met wherever they could, and a frontier informality prevailed.
Eleazer Wakeley, a young Wisconsin lawyer appointed judge of Nebraska Territory’s Third Judicial District in 1857, discovered that “the [legal] environments were not always propitious” in the new, sparsely settled area. In a reminiscence published by the Nebraska State Historical Society in 1894, Wakeley recalled: “Court houses were improvised from halls, school houses, store rooms or abandoned buildings. In the newer counties, it happened to me to hold the first terms ever appointed. The inhabitants were not familiar with the us ages, and punctilios of courts… One jury came in, after a two days’ trial of a criminal case, full of elaborate instructions from the court, and several hours deliberation, to inquire whether the prisoner ‘had plead guilty.’ Set right on this important point, they presently returned a verdict of acquittal.
“On another occasion a jury was out when a recess was taken, at the close of the day. The sheriff was directed to notify the judge when the jury should agree. In the evening, there was a resounding tramp on the stairs, and in the hall way of the hotel leading to the judge’s room. The sheriff, at the head of the procession, opened the door, handed the judge a paper with a pleased air, and announced, ‘Your Honor, the jury has agreed. Here is the verdict.’ A counter march was ordered; and the verdict taken at the court house with due solemnity.
“Even in the older county of Washington, there was once a rather unique reception of a verdict. In January, 1861, near the close of my term, Chief Justice Augustus Hall, successor of Judge [Fenner] Ferguson, held court at DeSoto for two or three days. The jury was out, in a strongly contested criminal case, and, at reasonable bedtime, had not agreed. The Chief Justice retired. He occupied the choice guest room of the hotel, which was directly over the office (there were no 'corridors' in Nebraska then), and warmed by a stove pipe through a hole in the ceiling. Towards midnight, the jury agreed. It was marshalled into the room beneath. The judge had risen; but his ‘robes’ were not strictly judicial. Down through the stove pipe hole, he ordered the clerk to call the jury, and take the verdict. It was for the defendant. Again came the order, ‘Clerk, record the verdict. The prisoner is released. Sheriff, adjourn court until tomorrow morning.’”
When Parks Were a New Idea
Should cities and states set aside some land for public recreation? Today that seems like an obvious amenity, but 19th century Nebraskans had to be talked into it. Parks don’t seem necessary when you’re living on the frontier. The growing emphasis on parks showed how Nebraska was changing—and not just in the cities.
On Aug. 2, 1888, the Lincoln Daily Call called for the formation of a “state park,” which would be maintained by state funds: “The Call believes that the suggestion made by a thoughtful and widely informed citizen of Lincoln, that Nebraska secure and improve a state park is a good one. Kings and emperors and even wealthy private citizens have their parks. Cities have their parks. The United States has its national park [Yellowstone]. If these are good in- vestments, why should not a fine park owned and maintained by the state be a credit to Nebraska and an object of pride and satisfaction to her citizens?
“Such a park would furnish the means of preserving specimens of the natural products of the state in both the vegetable and animal kingdoms. It would furnish a magnificent place of resort for the people who love to look nature in the face when she has laid aside her utilitarian guise and adorned herself in the garments of beauty and repose. There is too little of rest and too much of rush and worry in the great west. There is too much cultivation of the basely profitable and too little development of the higher phases of life. The state could make no better investment than to purchase about four sections of picturesque bluff land in some suitable location….”
Today it seems quaint that the Call thought that a single state park would do the job, but such a limited request shows how radical the idea was at the time. Many taxpayers would not want to pay for such luxury.
Historically, public parks are a relatively new idea, and they became a bigger deal as the Industrial Revolution led to ever-larger cities and transformed landscapes. In 1899 the Omaha Board of Park Commissioners sought advice from a professional named H. W. S. Cleveland, the designer of Minneapolis’s park-and-boulevard system. The Omaha Bee published Cleveland’s report.
He advised Omahans to think ahead: "With free access to open fields and woods within a mile or two, we think of parks only as luxuries, but when the distance is so increased that a day must be devoted to the journey in order to secure the boon of green fields and fresh air, the sense of confinement becomes stifling and we mourn the folly which prevented us from foreseeing and providing for the certain want.”
Like good schools and libraries, good parks became points of civic pride in large and small towns alike. But the notion of state parks took time to catch on. Nebraska's first state park is Chadron State Park, founded in 1921.
