November 2023 • Nebraskaland 21
Topographical maps weren't available
for Antelope County prior to that time
either.
Merlin Bolling, a life-long resident of
the Clearwater area, has seen plenty of
fl oods in his 73 years. They come about
every 10 years, he said. There were big
ones in the 1940s, 1960s and 1990s.
The biggest was in 2010, although
there could have been others before
records were kept. Bolling suspected a
1918 fl ood he was told about by other
long-time residents caused the shift. It
was after that fl ood, the former county
road superintendent said, that a bridge
was moved to the river a few miles
upstream from Red Wing. The long,
narrow oxbow it left behind, the one
now carrying the river's fl ow, became
known as Horseshoe Slough.
On a visit to the Antelope County
Museum to peruse old bound volumes
of the Neligh Leader, I found a story
on the front page of the June 7, 1918,
edition of a storm that brought heavy
rain, turned the streets to rivers and
washed out the railroad tracks west
of town in a location where only
temporary repairs had been made
following a previous storm. The story,
short by today's standards following a
fl ood, focused more on damage done
by wind and lightning, as though
fl ooding was passé. Most of the news
in each edition of the paper that year
was coverage of World War I.
The museum had another
interesting relic that may be the best
clue to the river's shift: An 1884 plat
map, the oldest they have, showed
the main channel of the river fl owing
south, where it does today, but also
A wood duck perches on a fallen tree as a North American beaver lurks below it in a backwater at
Red Wing Wildlife Management Area.
