Weeping Water: A Nebraska "Boom" Town
The story of Nebraska’s
limestone capital starts deep underground. Story and Photography by Bobbi and Steve Olson |
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| Click on the above image for a slide show of more images from Weeping Water |
There's more to this land than meets the eye, and 30 miles south of Omaha we
began to notice clues. Along Highway 50 we met a steady procession of chalky-looking
dump trucks with “pups” tagging along behind. Among profiles of
windmills, barns and silos, we saw a series of stark, rectangular towers connected
by long conveyors. Beside heaps of gravel we saw a large pond with an odd greenish
tint. A sign read, “Weeping Water, 2 miles.”
Other than locals, few highway travelers are aware they’re traveling alongside – and over – a vast series of limestone mining tunnels extending several miles north and south of town. Two hundred feet below the familiar cornfields, mechanical beasts with eyes of piercing white light dig deeper into a world of constant darkness.
In a state not known for mining, Weeping Water’s abundant limestone makes it an intriguing town.
We arrived for a visit, passing the homes of some of the town’s 1,100 residents nestled in the wooded bluff s along Weeping Water Creek. Monday morning was off to a slow start. We found few cars on the town’s brick main street.
With its many historic buildings, Weeping Water feels like an old town. (It was founded in 1857.) To some, the distinctive limestone exteriors of the Weeping Water Academy (now the city library) and the Methodist Church seem blemished. Rust leaches from invisible holes in the stone, adorning exterior walls with rust-colored stripes. Residents tell us that limestone “weeps” over the years.
A brightly-colored mural on another downtown building gives the romanticized legend of how the town got its name. According to the 1920s poem, “The Ballad of Weeping Water,” two Indian tribes fought a bloody battle in the valley. That night, anguished cries of mourning rose from camps on both sides of the creek. The flowing tears converged in the valley, forming the larger stream since known as Weeping Water.
Nebraska folklorist Louise Pound (see a review of her biography on p. 63) studied this fascinating legend. She concluded that the creek’s Indian name meant “Rustling Water,” not Weeping Water – though she believed that the tradition of a local Indian massacre probably existed before white settlers began writing about it.
The beautiful hills where long-ago natives may or may not have mourned their dead still line Weeping Water Creek, and the town itself spreads out along the creek’s winding path. The railroad follows, too. On the town’s eastern outskirts, the PCS Phosphate plant hugs the northern slope. On the valley’s south side, the PCS mine lies hidden beneath deposit layers with names such as Spring, Stull, Clay Creek, Kereford, Plattsmouth and Heebner. The name of each layer means something to geologists. On the road down to the mine, we could see exposed layers of sediment in the wall of a bluff.