About Nehawka

Nehawka is a village in south-east Cass County, Nebraska. The population was 173 at the 2020 census, down from 204 in 2010 and 232 in 2000. The village covers about 0.23 square miles at an elevation of roughly 1,000 feet. Weeping Water lies about eight miles west, Nebraska City about twelve miles south-east and Plattsmouth about thirteen miles north.

History

The first permanent settlement at Nehawka was made in 1855, and the post office opened in 1875. The village was platted in 1887, when a new railroad line was extended to that point. The name is derived from an Omaha and Otoe name meaning rustling water, taken from a nearby creek. The log cabin library, built in 1934, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Ernest M. Pollard and George L. Sheldon, who served as Nebraska's fourteenth governor, both came from the community.

The flint quarries

Flint nodules occur in the Pennsylvanian limestone beneath the area, and prehistoric people quarried them for tools and weapons. Quarry pits north of the village remain largely intact, while limestone mining has destroyed sites to the south-west. Recovered artefacts range from roughly 500 to 5,000 years old. People of the Central Plains tradition, farming communities that lived in earthlodge settlements in east central Nebraska and western Iowa from about 1000 to 1400 AD, used the flint heavily. Nehawka flint has been found at sites across the central Great Plains, evidence that it was an important article of trade. The quarries are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a marker stands in the village park at Main and Washington streets.

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