Wish I knew the context, a WTF did I just read of the 1920s

Hi there! I'm doing a research project on Nebraska in the 1970s and am looking for an Image of a Nebraska Drivers License from any time in the 70s. I've tried the library and the historical society with no luck. Thanks in advance Nebraskans!

Although the story is on full display at the historical sections of Indian Caves State Park, few people know the details. In many ways, the story of the forgotten town of Deroin, Nebraska is the story of our state. Exploring how this community, and other early Nebraska towns evolved in the nineteenth century reveals fascinating themes in the history the American West. Indian Caves State Park is an archetype of an ancient Nebraska town, and it has more in common with our modern cities than you might think.

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There are many seemingly mysterious things about Indian Caves; from the "Half-breed Cemetery" full of simple wooden crosses, to the ignominious death of the town's founder in a drunken fight, and the town's destruction by the encroaching river... the park has its fair share of stories. Thanks to the park's name and the now-defaced petroglyphs, the public can probably guess that Indian Caves is associated with the Native Americans of southeastern Nebraska. The location was actually a major village in the ancestral homelands of the Otoe-Missouria. Their neighbors included the Iowa, Omaha-Ponca, Pawnee, and native visitors from across the plains and greater North America. Relations between natives and whites in 1800s Nebraska were characterized by military and removal policy by the United States Government, but also by alliances, treaties, reservations, allotments, and above all, trade.

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One critical theme to understand about this history involves kinship alliances based on marriage. In very general terms, colonial agents and white merchants tended to forge familial relationships with indigenous communities through marriage. Scholars of the American West like Juliane Barr have compared the approaches of colonial powers in establishing their respective fur trade networks. They have concluded that the French, despite their lack of administration or infrastructure, had the most extensive fur trade network. This is certainly the result of alliances formed through marriage.

In fact, French-Indigenous people are among the largest native heritages in North America, spanning many different linguistic, national and tribal identities. The emergence of European-Indigenous communities (The Métis) is correlated to the fur trade that dominated North American commerce until the mid nineteenth century. This correlation is largely due to marriages. Marriages represented economic alliances between individuals, and by proxy, the communities they represented. Alliances and familial ties based on marriage were important for native communities to express agency in international relations. Marriage was also an important way for fur traders (usually French speaking ones) to establish networks in native lands.

Of course, this is a broad generalization with many exceptions, but it was true in the Missouri River basin and many other parts of the American West. Manuel Lisa for instance, is said to be the first American to set up a trade post in Nebraska. Lisa was born in New Orleans to Spanish and French merchants. He became an American after the Louisiana Purchase, and his outfit, the Missouri Fur Company, was given permission by Lewis and Clarke to open Nebraska to US markets.

Lisa established a fort near the Missouri River in 1813, gaining the blessing of the local Omaha people, who had a village close by in what is now known as Ponca Hills. He gained this blessing because his wife, Mitane, was one of their own. She was actually a noblewoman, a daughter of the First Family of the Omaha. Her father was Otopanga (Big Elk), Head Chief of the Omaha. Other traders that established ties with Big Elk's family included Lucien Fontanelle and Joseph LaFlesche Sr.

The children of these white traders and Omaha women would go on to be some of the most influential people in the early history of the state. Indeed, they are a link between the modern communities of eastern Nebraska and their ancient past. The genealogy of Joseph Deroin, "founder" of the abandoned town that is now Indian Caves, is not as clear. His father was Amable Deroin, brother of Francois Deroin, who was head of the American Fur Company operation in Bellevue. Amable married Joseph's mother, an Omaha woman named Mika'ahume, though some sources name her as one of Joseph's wives. The records on all of the men's spouses are incomplete.

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What is clear is that the descendants of Amable and Francois Deroin, especially Joseph, are wedged between the Indigenous and US history of the Missouri River basin. This is the same kind of story we saw in the Omaha and Bellevue area. Though Mika'ahume's genealogy is not widely available, we can assume the native women who married the Deroin brothers were part of a relatively important paternal line. Joseph Deroin left home around 1836 when he was 17, and followed in the footsteps of his father and uncle. He married an Omaha woman, and two Metis women of Iowa or Otoe heritage named Julis and Susee Baskette. Six years earlier, in 1830, a treaty between the US and plains Peoples established the Great Nemaha Half-breed Reservation in today's Nemaha county, Nebraska. Joseph Deroin aqcuired two allotments, including the Otoe village where he lived. By the 1850s, this place was being called Deroin.

In 1858, Joseph Deroin was killed by a man named James Beddow after approaching Beddow's home armed, drunk, and with a posse of men. His community lived on after him. The town's inhabitants later renamed the town "St. Deroin" in order to associate it with St. Louis and encourage trade. Its water-side position on the Missouri River made it a popular stop for steamboats, but repeated floods and shifting from the river gradually doomed it. A disasterous flood in 1911 marked the end of an ancient legacy of permanent settlement, and the town was abandoned by 1920.

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With this context in mind, we can see why a seemingly forgotten cemetery on a foot trail in Indian Caves State Park might be called "Half-breed Cemetery", since everybody in this town identified as "Half-breeds". A few memorials remain at the cemetery, but the full story might be found in the tribal history of the Otoe-Missouria. The St. Deroin Cemetery on the main park road is much larger, and is the resting place of many original inhabitants of the town, only a handful of whom lived beyond their thirties. Joseph Deroin was buried here, upright, and astride his horse like a warrior.

I'm from California and have never been to Nebraska. My grandfather estranged himself from the Laus, moved to California, and never talked about them much again. But I've done my DNA on Ancestry, and my family tree and H. P. Lau Sr. was my third great-grandfather.

I was wondering if anyone here might know more about H.P. Lau Co.? Or if you have any suggestions for researching Lincoln, Nebraska history?

I would like to create a list of old NE high schools that closed and are defunct. I would like to collect the school name, location if it isn’t the name of the school, school mascot and school colors. I have a couple projects in mind and this information would be very useful. Bonus if you happen to know when it closed. Feel free to share defunct colleges and their data too. Please help me create the most complete list around. TIA.