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The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Spring 2001 The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument Susan Wunder University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] John R. Wunder University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Wunder, Susan and Wunder, John R., "The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument" (2001). Great Plains Quarterly. 2231. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2231 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. REVIEW ESSAY THE GREAT PLATTE RIVER ROAD ARCHWAY MONUMENT The summer of 2000 marked the grand cation: Honors, a Few Laughs," focused on opening of the Great Platte River Road Arch­ economic development. Said a local develop­ way Monument just east of Kearney, Nebraska, ment official and member of the board of the on Interstate SO. Costing approximately $60 private foundation that built the thirty-foot­ million the site features exhibits on the his­ high arch, "It's going to serve as a big welcome tory of the American West in the first and mat for the state."2 Even discounting debat­ only "museum" to straddle an interstate high­ able geography, Kearney being nearly halfway way. At the 16 July grand opening, former across Nebraska in the center of the Great Nebraska Governor Frank Morrison, a spry Plains, entrance fees-$S.50 per adult, $ 7 per ninety-five years, reminisced before an audi­ child 3 to 11 and seniors 65 or over-may ence of over six hundred, including both of prove to be a deterrent. Nebraska's US senators and its current gover­ Absent from the general hoopla surround­ nor, about having realized his dream of honor­ ing the opening was any substantial attention ing the nation's westward movement. to the Monument's themes. Are the exhibits Coverage of the event in the state's two intellectually sound? Are they intelligible? leading newspapers was generally positive. The How historically accurate are the presenta­ Lincoln Journal Star noted that "while the de­ tions? Moreover, how might the Archway be­ sign and concept of the archway have been come a major educational site for the state's criticized by some, supporters hope the struc­ and the region's students and general public? ture entices some of an estimated 12 million How easily will teachers find the exhibits lend­ motorists who cross Nebraska on I-SO each ing themselves to classroom use? Such queries year."l Nebraska's reputation as the drive­ deserve exploration before we can venture to across state or fly-over land is always a con­ assess the overall value of Nebraska's newest cern to the region's tourist interests. The attraction. Omaha World-Herald used the occasion to praise the city of Kearney's boosterism with a HISTORY AT THE ARCHWAY color photo of the Arch at sunset gracing its front page article, "Kearney Always Looking Rounding a bend heading west on Inter­ Ahead." A second page article, "At Arch Dedi- state SO west of Gibbon just north of Fort 155 156 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2001 Kearny and two miles from the one and only found and that oxen were the best animals to city of Kearney exit, one is startled by a first draw a wagon. A videotaped bison stampede glimpse of the Great Platte River Road Arch­ quickly takes over our journey. way Monument. Eight stories tall and 308 feet Thus far this exhibit of the nineteenth-cen­ long, the building looks in some ways more tury West is carefully represented, seeming to like a stockade from seventeenth-century place viewers at the scene visually and liter­ Massachusetts than a Great Plains fort. There ally. Treatments of the Oregon Trail, the is also a resemblance to a covered bridge; per­ Mormon migration, and the Gold Rush are haps those of Madison County, Iowa, were given modern, not mythic, renderings. Even factored into the design. Fort or bridge, it is a the hazards of the Oregon Trail are histori­ traffic stopper, this first museum monument cally accurate. We learn that one out of every permitted to lease air space over an interstate seventeen travelers died from accidents or highway. Indeed, it has stopped so much traf­ cholera, the two greatest killers on the Trail, fic that warning signs now appear on both and that Indians suffered severely from the sides of the interstate imploring motorists to diseases overlanders introduced. From 1841 pay attention and not drive off the road or to 1866, 350,000 people traveled the Platte stop under penalty of fine. River roads. Exiting Interstate 80 and following the signs Five murals dominate the view as we move to ample parking spaces, one encounters a further into the structure. There are moun­ number of psychedelic tip is situated several tain men, featuring African American fur hundred yards from the Monument. No ex­ trader Jim Beckwourth, Jim Bridger again, and planation for their appearance or placement the rendezvous. There is "Golden Country," is offered. Visitors' first impressions may be representing John Sutter's discovery, the di­ puzzlement. Billed as a place to experience versity of the throng that responded, and the history, not as South Dakota's Wall Drug or impact of the Gold Rush upon California's Corn Palace, the Archway needs to make up Native peoples. Then we meet the Mormons, for these initial oddities quickly. It does. with Brigham Young-announcing "This is the Upon entering the Monument and buying place!" to signify Utah-and Emmeline Wells, tickets, visitors are immediately struck by a Mormon women's rights advocate. A fourth huge escalator moving skyward about to carry mural, ironically titled "The Land of Milk and them into what looks like the opening of a Honey," depicts the doom that befell the covered wagon. Touring the building involves Donner Party. Here we hear the words of wearing electronic headphones that transmit N arcissa Whitman and Eliza Spaulding, a script coordinated to each exhibit wherever spouses of missionaries who traveled the Platte one is inside the Monument. The West awaits.3 River Road, and Bridget Mason, a black woman At the top of the escalator, the sounds of a journeying to the Pacific Northwest. The last typical Plains rain storm, replete with thunder mural, "Winds of Change," successfully illus­ and flashing light, can be heard. Jim Bridger, trates the diversity of the indigenous presence the fur trapper and mountain man, is our his­ in the West, the problems migrants and set­ toric guide. We meet a young girl who kept an tlers caused them, and the continuity modern Oregon Trail journal; we learn that Indians Indians represent today, with quotes from inhabited the Platte Valley; we are told this Cheyenne River Sioux bison rancher Fred region was well-traveled by many seeking land Dubray and Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday. in Oregon, religious freedom in Utah, and gold Generally, the Monument builders have in California. Initial maps in the first exhibit gotten the story right, despite a few sins of are minuscule, but better maps will appear later omission. There is an assumption, for example, in the tour. We hear that Indians showed that white immigration was monolithic; there Jedidiah Smith where South Pass could be is no attention to linguistic diversity, both REVIEW ESSAY 157 among Indian nations and European emigrants. At this point the audio blares our first dra­ But at the Archway the typical sins of com­ matic patriotic theme. What the Platte River mission, the misrepresentations of history too Road is all about is "freedom"-the freedom many museums and historic sites offer their to travel. "The Great Platte River Road helped visitors, are rare. build a country." We learn that the drive­ At the Monument's next attraction we are through land "fed the restless spirit of a pio­ introduced to the Pony Express, the railroad, neer nation on the move." We hear Woody and the overland stage. Particularly arresting Guthrie singing about this land for you and is the video reenactment of express riders me. There is a crescendo of patriotic music. moving the mail. The railroad exhibits are We hear John F. Kennedy talking about how thoroughly developed, an appropriate ac­ "man cannot be deterred," a reference to the knowledgment of the presence of the Union moon landing. There is talk of the Internet­ Pacific in Nebraska and the Plains. Once the the modern information highway-and the golden spike is driven into the last railroad tie construction of the first transcontinental at Promontory Point by Leland Stanford, how­ fiberoptic cable along the Great Platte River ever, the viewer is in for some startling leaps Road. And then we hear Martin Luther King of faith. Transitions are rickety, suggesting the Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and a few words Archway designers themselves sensed a missed from Neil Armstrong. "The freedom to go opportunity to enlarge upon the American anywhere," the narrator intones, "is imbedded epic. in our nation." The pioneer spirit endures into From 1869 we jump to 1912 and the con­ the present. struction of the Lincoln Highway. The transi­ Now we hear powwow music. Indians re­ tional theme, the transcontinental driver, main Indians though we are not told that dur­ while engaging, needs greater development. ing part of the twentieth century they were Saying the prairie schooner wagon was re­ not free to travel off their reservations.
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