20 Nebraskaland • December 2021
elson McDowell was reportedly
a colorful character. And if
you visit the "mausoleum"
he carved out of a sandstone cliff
overlooking Rose Creek in Jefferson
County, and later learn that it may
have simply been a hobby to keep him
busy and in good health rather than a
place he intended to be buried, that is
easy to believe.
The mausoleum, by definition, isn't
actually a mausoleum. Also known as
McDowell's Tomb, it is located on Rose
Creek Wildlife Management Area, a
few miles southwest of Fairbury.
McDowell started his project in 1915,
and over the next 10 years, cut his
way nearly 30 feet into the bluff. In the
decades since, people have come from
near and far, with the oddity even
gaining mention in Ripley's Believe It
Or Not in 1971. Nowadays, visitors
see the dark, musty and dusty tomb
only occupied by moths, spiders and
millipedes, and the occasional snake
or bat.
McDowell, born in 1856, is the son
of J.B. McDowell, who helped found
the village of Avoca, Illinois, before
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