You’ll Never Believe What Took Place On The Nebraska Prairie Over A Century Ago

As anyone from small-town Nebraska knows, you can learn the most interesting things by just walking around, being friendly, and talking to people. This was the case recently when my family and I went walking around beautiful historic Brownville. We went on a Sunday, so not much was open other than the tiny general store. We all crowded into the shop, and while the kids picked out sodas I struck up a conversation with a local man who was standing in the doorway. He had been on the front steps of the shop when we arrived, working out some sort of deal over the phone. Like most of the people we encountered in the little town that day, he seemed mildly curious about the off-season strangers wandering around his town. As we paid for the drinks and the kids amused themselves with the "old fashioned" bottle opener, the man and I chatted about what my family was doing in the area.

When I mentioned that I was researching a story for work, and that my job involves writing about interesting things in Nebraska, his eyes glinted a little and a grin turned up the corners of his mouth.

"I've got a story about Nebraska for you."

In the mid-1800s, Nebraska City became an important freight terminal. Being right on the river, the city was the perfect place to unload freight boats and then transfer the goods to freight wagons. The wagons then carried the payloads overland deeper into the prairie to supply military posts. Trade routes were rough and often difficult to pass in wagons.

The freighting company Russell, Majors, and Waddell paid for a road to be established between Nebraska City and Fort Kearny, making the journey easier for the wagons. In 1862, Minnesota politician-turned-speculator Joseph Renshaw Brown saw an opportunity to introduce a steam-powered wagon to the area. The wagon would pull freight wagon trains over the prairie with many times the strength of the traditional team of oxen.

(All steam wagon images here are representative of the wagons from this era, but none is the actual wagon used by Brown.) After much fanfare, including driving the steam wagon around the town for people to marvel at, the wagon was hitched up to a payload and began its trek westward from Nebraska City. Denver was the ultimate destination.All went well...for about seven miles. At that point, the steam wagon unceremoniously died out there on the prairie. Without access to the parts needed to fix the problem, Brown and his crew simply abandoned the wagon where it stood.

The wagon sat out there for four years before a small group of Brown's associates came in 1866 to attempt a repair. When they couldn't fix it, they decided to haul it back to Nebraska City. They gave up after three miles, again abandoning the contraption on the high plains. And that's where it sat for many more years until someone finally hauled it off to an iron works to be dismantled and melted down.

The story is equal parts funny and sad, but there's another element that shouldn't be ignored. Brown's wood-burning, steam-powered wagon - ill-fated though it was - was the first self-propelled vehicle to be driven west of the Missouri River. Though its voyage was short, Brown's steam wagon will always be an important part of Nebraska's transportation history. Steam powered vehicles, particularly trains, would become vital to the state's commerce in the following years.

After relaying the tale, the man in the general store informed me that the folk band The New Christy Minstrels wrote a song about Brown's steam wagon, and by chance they would be performing in Brownville in April. Whether that was a coincidence or a sly bit of guerrilla marketing I'll never know, but I'm happy that I stopped to chat that day. You never know what kinds of interesting stories you'll hear when you just take a few minutes to talk with a friendly stranger in Nebraska.