Medicine Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed March 29, 2011 tributary of the

Republican River The Republican River is a river in the central Great Plains of North America, rising in the High Plains (United States), High Plains of eastern Colorado and flowing east U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline ...

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

. Medicine Creek rises in an outlying portion of the Nebraska Sand Hills near the unincorporated community of

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

in Lincoln County and flows southeast through Frontier County to its confluence with the Republican River east of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, in

Furnas County, Nebraska Furnas County is a county in the U.S. state of Nebraska. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 4,636. Its county seat is Beaver City. The county was named for Robert Wilkinson Furnas, the second governor of the state of Nebras ...

. About north of Cambridge, the

Medicine Creek Dam Medicine Creek Dam (National ID # NE01073) is a dam in Frontier County, Nebraska. The earthen and rockfill dam was constructed in 1948 and 1949 by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. It is high, and long at its crest. It impounds Medici ...

impounds the Harry Strunk reservoir, in area and primarily created for flood-control. A state park and recreational area is located around the dam and lower portion of the reservoir. . Downloaded from Project Muse. Medicine Creek is spring fed. Water quality is good and quantity is reliable. Medicine Creek flows through

mixed grass prairie A mixed-grass prairie is an ecotone located between the tallgrass prairies and shortgrass prairies. The mixed-grass prairie is richer in ecological diversity than either the tall- or shortgrass prairie. The mixed-grass prairie occurs in the ce ...

s, intermediate between the

tallgrass prairie The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America. Historically, natural and anthropogenic fire, as well as grazing by large mammals (primarily bison) provided periodic disturbances to these ecosystems, limiting the encroach ...

to the east the

shortgrass prairie The shortgrass prairie is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America. The two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama (''Bouteloua gracilis'') and buffalograss (''Bouteloua dactyloides''), the two less domina ...

(

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslands, ...

) to the west. Precipitation is highly variable but averages per year which is the minimum required for unirrigated agriculture in the

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...

. Forests are found in the stream bottoms along Medicine Creek and its tributaries. Cambridge, with a population of about 1,000 in 2020, is the largest town in the basin of Medicine Creek. "Medicine" as a name applied to geographic features is fairly common in the western United States for places associated with Native Americans (Indians). Medicine Creek was a well-watered and wooded corridor between the Republican and

Platte River The Platte River () is a major river in the State of Nebraska. It is about long; measured to its farthest source via its tributary, the North Platte River, it flows for over . The Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri River, which itself ...

s dating from pre-historic times. A band of

Oglala The Oglala (pronounced , meaning "to scatter one's own" in Lakota language) are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires). A majority of the Oglala live o ...

Dakota Dakota may refer to: * Dakota people, a sub-tribe of the Sioux ** Dakota language, their language Dakota may also refer to: Places United States * Dakota, Georgia, an unincorporated community * Dakota, Illinois, a town * Dakota, Minnesota, ...

called the Cut-off Oglala took up residence near Stockville in 1870. In the same year white cattlemen began to settle near the creek. In fall 1872, the Oglala chief Whistler and two more Oglala were murdered, probably by white

bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North Ame ...

hunters, and in 1873-1874 the Oglala departed the valley to reside on a reservation.

Archaeology

A portion of Medicine Creek around the reservoir and extending up Lime Creek, a tributary, has been an area of extensive archaeological research since the 1920s. Findings include fossils of extinct

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...

s, evidence of

Clovis Culture The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone and bone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna, particularly two mammoths, at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936 ...

and pre-Clovis Paleo-Indians, and many sites associated with the prehistoric

Plains Village period The Plains Village period or the Plains Village tradition is an archaeological period on the Great Plains from North Dakota down to Texas, spanning approximately 900/950 to 1780/1850 CE. On the west and east, Plains villagers were bounded by the ...

from roughly 1000 to 1450 CE. The

Mowry Bluff Archeological Site The Mowry Bluff Archeological Site, in Frontier County, Nebraska, near Cambridge, Nebraska, is a archeological site that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Its Smithsonian trinomial designation is 25 FT 35. It is ...

, is located below the dam and is listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

References

External links

* USGS - Water Resources of the United State

{{authority control Rivers of Nebraska Rivers of Furnas County, Nebraska Archaeological sites in Nebraska Rivers of Lincoln County, Nebraska

Archaeology

See also

References

External links