DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge and Museum

During our family visits to Omaha, we’ve continued to explore the state of Nebraska as well as the Omaha metropolitan area itself.  The De Soto National Wildlife Refuge and its museum was one more attraction on our Omaha area’s ‘to visit list’.  So the family headed a little north of Omaha and then across the Missouri River into Iowa.

The large building that is so nicely blended into the trees is the Refuge Office and Museum for the DeSoto National Wildlife Museum.  Parts of this 8,365 acre wildlife refuge lie in both Iowa and Nebraska but the largest portion, including this structure, is located in Iowa.  The refuge is centered on DeSoto Lake, an oxbow lake that was once a bend in the Missouri River.

This refuge includes bottomland forests, tall grass prairie and wetland habitats that mimic the natural Missouri River floodplain.  One of, if not the primary purpose, for the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge’s existence is that it serves as a critical flyway stopover for migrating birds that pass through here each spring and fall. 

This handsome sculpture of an eagle near the entrance to the Refuge office and museum was created by Richard Hart in 2003.  It was paid for by visitors to the Refuge as well through donations.

Exhibits related to the wildlife found at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge are found near the entrance to the Refuge’s office.  There are a number of taxidermy examples that provide visitors with close-up looks at various species.  The combination of habitats in the refuge is utilized by more than 100 species of birds… Of course, we visited in mid-summer so other than a few water birds and local feathered residents, birdwatching was minimalized.  The Refuge is also home to rabbits, mink, muskrat, beaver, otters, white-tailed deer, bobcat, coyotes and many other mammals.

As we moved past the taxidermy birds and other animals, we noted this steel plow.  Once upon a time, the USA’s tallgrass prairie land covered about 170,000,000 acres or 40% of the country.  Somewhere from 1 to 4% remain. 

The soil in the tallgrass prairie was rich in nutrients and steel plows enabled European American settlers to break up the rich sod and plant crops.  The layers were so deep that it required a special ‘breaking plow’ to plow a furrow the first time.  Those plows were attached to a cart that was pulled by a yoke of 4 – 6 oxen.

Next, we came to the part of the museum that isn’t related to wildlife…but rather man’s movement to the western USA in the 1800s.   The ship model is of the ‘Bertrand’, a stern-wheel steamboat.  It was built in Wheeling West Virginia in 1864.  The ship was 161 feet long and had a beam/width of 32 feet.  She was a shallow draft vessel, probably requiring than about 3 feet of water to navigate. 

The Bertrand was one of many vessels involved in the regional river trading system that existed from the mid to late 1800s.  Beginning in 1859, steamboats had been traveling up the Missouri River as far as Fort Benton in the Montana Territory, which is only about 40 miles from Great Falls.  When gold was found at the Alder Gulch claim in 1863, many wishful prospectors headed to the area from around the country.  This migration created one of our most previously prosperous frontier towns, Virginia City Montana.  A year after the discovery, 35,000 people lived within 10 miles of the original claim.

On April 1, 1865, the Bertrand’s short career was ended when she struck a snag and sank on her way up the Missouri River toward Fort Benton Montana.  She sank in 10 minutes in about 12 feet of water and no one lost their lives but almost the entire cargo was lost.  This happened just 25 miles north of Omaha.  The equivalent loss in today’s dollars was ca. $1,900,000.

Using historical documents and a flux gate magnetometer, 2 modern treasure hunters located the wreck of the Bertrand in early 1968.  As the wreck was found on Federal property, the treasure hunters relinquished all of the recovered artifacts to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for permanent preservation.  More than 500,000 artifacts were recovered during the excavation.

The items shown in the photo above are “carboys”, lead containers used to transport mercury.  The treasure hunters had hoped to find the rumored 500 of these containers on the wreck, but only 9 were ever found.  The mercury in 500 of these containers would have been very valuable. 

FYI – When mercury and gold meet, they settle and combine to form an amalgam.  Then the gold is extracted by vaporizing the mercury…a highly toxic procedure but common in the gold rush days.

This photo shows a variety of items on exhibit in the Bertrand portion of the museum.  On the shelves behind the bottles are wash tubs, lard tins, and champagne.  The bottles contain a variety of food items.  The vessel’s cargo included 216 pints of honey plus strawberries, pepper sauce, bourbon, brandy, vegetables, peaches, etc. 

Early ‘canned goods’ were stored in sealed glass containers.  Sanitary air-tight cans weren’t introduced until 1904.  Samples of canned food from the Bertrand, including brandied peaches, oysters, plum tomatoes, honey and mixed vegetables were tested in 1974.  Appearance, smell and the vitamin content has deteriorated, but the food was determined to still be safe to eat.  No thank you!

What follows is a series of photos showing a fraction of the cargo that has been recovered from the Bertrand and preserved.  In the photo above, there are doorknobs, brass drawer pulls, padlocks and hinges…with that big roll of hemp in the background.

This is a solid wood box full of axe heads.  Interesting irony…the crate is labeled with the warning, “Must be kept Dry”.  Other key items for the miners included blasting powder, pickaxes and bunches of shovels.  I believe that the same disclaimer probably applied to similar boxes...that contained soap.

As the sign on this display states, cowbells would have been valuable in the Montana Territory, especially during the gold rush.  It was a chance to get rich without mining!  Dairy cows were really valued by the mining camps for their milk, cream and butter. 

It boggles my mind that textiles survived in their containers under the mud and water for over 100 years before they were ‘recovered’.  Here we have a selection of hats and socks…along with surviving fabric and a tie.  Over 3,000 textile and items of clothing were recovered.  They included gloves, trousers and 137 men’s coats in a number of different styles.

Did you notice the ice skates and wooden buckets in the first photo above?

Being the ‘wild west’ in 1865, and right after the Civil War, the Bertrand was also fully loaded with munitions although no firearms or cannons were recovered in 1968 – 1969.  It is thought that either there weren’t any on the vessel when it went down or that they were salvaged immediately after the ship was wrecked.  In any case, the recovered munitions include lead shot bars, shot molds, powder flasks, percussion caps and even mountain howitzer shells.

Just in case you were wondering…all of the goods on the Bertrand were fully insured. 

Although the ‘star’ of our visit was the contents of the Bertrand, the purpose of the refuge is its wildlife.  While we didn’t seen many water birds, there were plenty of songbirds and we did spots lots of turtles.  I noted that related species at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge include: smooth soft shelled; spiny soft shelled; painted; Blanding’s; ornate box, and; snapping turtles.

To learn more about the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge and its museum, go to DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (fws.gov).  Admission: $3.00 per vehicle or via a National Park Pass!  It’s quite a deal given how much most attractions cost in this day and age…

To learn about an even earlier steamboat wreck on the Missouri River (1856), the story of its discovery in 1988 and the preservation of associated items, you can just journey to Kansas City and visit the museum for the steamboat Arabia.  See A Historic Kansas City Attraction | The Arabia Steamboat Museum (1856.com).

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave