36 Nebraskaland • May 2024
loria Liljestrand-Barber found this 4-foot-high,
100-pound anchor in 1985. It was mostly buried in a
hayfi eld on her parents' farm near Brady. A similar
anchor had been discovered 3 miles away in 1894.
We don't know what became of the 1894 anchor, but a
few years ago Liljestrand-Barber donated this one to History
Nebraska.
How did a heavy anchor come to rest in a central Nebraska
hayfi eld? Here's a clue: The Platte River is nearby.
Legend has it that the steamboat El Paso traveled up the
Platte River in 1852, but the story never seemed plausible to
most historians. Even shallow-draft steamboats of that era
usually drew at least 4 feet of water, but the Platte's braided
channels were frustrating even in fur trade-era canoes or
bullboats.
But how else do you explain these heavy anchors? Turns
out the Platte River has another anchor story from the mid-
1800s, and it's not what you might expect.
The story of the El Paso's purported Platte River voyage
begins with a man named Edward Everett Hale, an author,
historian and Unitarian minister who in 1854 wrote Kanzas
(sic) and Nebraska, a hastily-compiled promotional book for
prospective settlers. In it, Hale claimed that the steamboat
El Paso had ascended the Platte River more than 500 miles in
the spring of 1853, following the North Platte River to a place
somewhere above Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming.
Hale did not say where he heard the story.
In 1921, Nebraska historian Grant Lee Shumway
What was this 100-pound
steamboat anchor doing in a
central Nebraska fi eld?
G
A History
Mystery
By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska
Four feet long and weighing more than 100 pounds, this
anchor was discovered near Brady, Nebraska. HISTORY NEBRASKA
