US

They're sweet these days, as long as they stay in their banks. When and if they flood, they're a pain, and most do come spring, unless they're damned up somewhere and brow-beaten into behaving. Outside of swelling up after some gully-washer, rivers are little more than a sweet feature of our landscape, home to ducks and geese, and life itself for deer and coons and a whole gallery of neighboring wildlife. You can pump ‘em out and sprinkle what you get over parched land. But that's it: rivers are just, well, rivers. We notice them only when they get out of line.

To be sure, there was a good reason for the Poncas to cut the deal they did with the strange emissary who showed up one day from Washington. He’d come to let them know  that “the Great Father” wanted the Poncas to move from their homeland on the Missouri River, to Indian Country, what would become Oklahoma, to a place where, he claimed, they’d be safe from raids by larger and more warlike neighbors.

Abraham Lincoln took office as the 16th president of the United States on March 4, 1861.  

The next month, the first shots of the Civil War sounded at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.  

The community of Spencer, Iowa is remembering the veterans of this deadly conflict.  

“This new exhibit it’s called “Boys in Blue, Grand Army of the Republic,” said Stephanie Horsley.  

Walking into a wing of the Clay County Heritage Center transports you to a time of turmoil for the United States starting in April of 1861.