Nemaha River in Nebraska.
The Nemaha River in Nebraska and Kansas is formed by two branches — the northern and longer one, which rises in Panama Township of Lancaster County, Nebraska. The stream’s course is to the southeast, through the northeast corner of Pawnee County, and through Richardson County toward the southeast, where the south branch joins it. The Kansas branch, called the South Fork, is formed by the junction of Hickory and Tennessee Creeks in Nemaha County. It unites at a point about two miles south of Seneca and flows northward, slightly to the east of Seneca, past the old village of Taylor Rapids, and on into Nebraska.
The northern branch is joined in Richardson County, at the eastern edge of Salem. From there, the Great Nemaha River flows in a slightly southeastern direction for about 30 miles to reach a point about 14 miles east of the junction of its two branches and then crosses the Kansas line three separate times within a space of about two miles, on the old Diminished Iowa Indian reservation. From there, the stream continues north and east for about five miles to join the Missouri River about two miles north of the Kansas-Nebraska boundary. The river’s south branch is approximately 50 miles long, while the larger one is about 150 miles long. The Nemaha River usually has a brisk current. It is broken at convenient intervals by rapids, which generally fall over rocks and have sufficient fall to furnish power for milling purposes if dammed or otherwise controlled. The same could be said of nearly all its tributaries.
Simon Luthy built Luthy Mills in 1881 at Table Rock, Nebraska. They had a capacity of 20,000 bushels annually.
The French explorer Etienne Veniard de Bourgmont is said to have camped at the mouth of the river in 1721 while trying to make peace between the Otoe and the Comanche tribes. When Lewis and Clark camped near here in 1804 on their way up the Missouri River, the water was good and abundant. They carved their names along the limestone cliffs.
In the account of Stephen H. Long’s Expedition in 1818-1820, he spoke of the river as the Great Nemahaw. Prince Maximilian, in the account of his travels, mentioned the stream as the Great Nemawha. Father Paul J. DeSmet, in his Letters and Sketches, mentions the stream in 1841-1842. The word “Nemaha” in the Otoe Indian language signifies “water of cultivation.” “Ne” means water, and “maha” denotes planting or cultivation.
In Kansas, an early-day trader named John Baptiste LeRoy of French-Canadian parentage operated a trading post and the first ferry across the river. He was an interpreter for the Ioway, Sac, and Fox tribes and a trader with them. It is thought that he may have come with the Indians in 1837. Their reservation embraced portions of what is now Brown and Doniphan Counties, Kansas, and Richardson County, Nebraska. LeRoy married an Ioway woman and established himself on the Nemaha River near the mouth of the creek that bears his name. Roy’s ferry was located on a much-traveled route, and there must have been a crossing here when Kansas Territory was created, for the first session of the territorial legislature established roads leading to that locality. He was associated with the Joseph Robidoux family in St. Joseph, Missouri. Most of the residents of this area did their trading in Rulo, Nebraska.
Nemaha River in Kansas.
Territorial roads were established leading to the site of Roy’s Ferry as early as 1855, the first starting from the Wyandotte Ferry on the Kansas River and running by way of Delaware, Leavenworth, Kickapoo, Port William, Doniphan, Iola, and Iowa Point, to the Kansas-Nebraska line, opposite Roy’s ferry on the Great Nemaha River. Another ran from Doniphan to the Kansas-Nebraska line via Roy’s ferry to Iowa Point.
The Nemaha River was considered the traditional boundary between the Otoe tribe on the north and the Kanza tribe on the south until those tribes ceded these lands in treaties. Afterward, the river marked a new division between the Iowa Reservation on the south and the Half-Breed Tract on the north.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated April 2025.
Also See:
Nebraska – The Cornhusker State
Sources:
PocketSights
Root, George A.; Kansas State Historical Society, November 1936.
Table Rock, Nebraska Historical Society