What’s In a Name: Nehawka and

Nehawka and Weeping Water, Neb.

Two municipalities in Nebraska have names derived from the same root meaning, though they tacked in different directions when they chose their ultimate monikers.

Nehawka and Weeping Water were both named for a word or phrase meaning “rustling or weeping water,” albeit in two different languages.

The Nehawka Public Library was among the spate of buildings erected in the 1890s when the railroad came to the small community. (Public domain via Wikimedia Commons) Shown is the downtown of Weeping Water, Neb. Ironically, the 0.95-square-mile town poignantly dubbed for a body of water consists entirely of land. (Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Nehawka

The homes and businesses in the town of Nehawka, population 214, were first built out of stone from a nearby quarry, and the town became firmly established at the arrival of a railroad line.

The settlement went through a series of names before settling on Nehawka, including Cassville, Factoryville and Waterville. The original claim was staked in 1855 by Iowa denizen Samuel Kirkpatrick, who built a sawmill on the north bank of Weeping Water Creek. Two years later, surveyor Isaac Pollard laid out the town dubbed Waterville, but no lot sales were ever recorded.

On a trip to Washington, D.C. in 1874, Pollard petitioned the federal postal service for a local post office designated Weeping Water. The name was already taken by another settlement and neither Pollard nor his brother, Levi, could pronounce the Indian word for “weeping water.” They, therefore, settled on the more pronounceable Nehawka, an Omaha and Otoe Indian word meaning “rustling water,” and received approval for a postal address for that name on Jan. 8, 1875.

Upon burgeoning rumors of a railroad cutting through town, the residents anticipated a local boom and began selling—and in some cases donating—their land to the railroad, which completed the line and built a station in Nehawka in 1887.

The following spring, a lumberyard was opened, quickly followed by a grain elevator, meat market and general store. In all, 30 businesses were founded before the town reached its first birthday.

The population reached 200 by 1893, and the townsfolk erected two churches, several other general stores and another meat market, a hardware and furniture store, drug store, bank, barbershop, billiard hall and the office for the weekly newspaper, “The Nehawka Register.”

The town’s population peaked at 353 in 1930 and has steadily decreased since then. The remaining residents, however, still “reflect on the proud heritage of their little town and the people who made it such a nice place to live.”

For more information, visit www.nehawkanebraska.com.

Weeping Water

On July 20, 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark happened upon a “twenty-five yards wide” creek named L’eau Qui Pleure, the French phrase for “weeping water.”

The name is said to derive from an Indian legend about an intertribal feud that started when one tribe stole the daughter of the other tribe’s chief. After a three-day battle, “all the braves lay dead” and “the tears cried by the families of the fallen warriors were said to have formed the ‘weeping waters.’”

The first white settlers, who arrived in March 1865, built a log house used variously as the local church, school and stable.

A post office named Weeping Water was established in 1857, 17 years before Isaac Pollard attempted to obtain the name on his trip to Washington, D.C.

Ten years later, the settlement was platted and a general store was opened. The town was incorporated in 1870. The population reached 317 in 1880, and after the railroad arrived in 1883, the census ballooned to 1,350 by 1890. At the turn of the century, the number decreased to 1,156 and has hovered just over 1,000 from 1900 to its present count of 1,103.

Since its founding, according to its website, www.weepingwaternebraska.com, “many things have changed. The steam whistle of an approaching passenger train no longer echoes across the valley, and the livery stable has been replaced by Keckler’s filling station and Mogensen’s garage.

“Rail cars still load grain from the elevator, and limestone from three quarries is still transported all around the globe.

“Gone with the fire and forge of the blacksmiths are the opera house and movie theatre, but baseball games still bring out a crowd, and the whole town shuts down when the basketball team makes the state finals.”

For more information, visit www.weepingwaternebraska.com.