I have a set of bad family photos as interesting for their background as for us, but first I have some extras related to the old park, a prime recreation ground for northeast Nebraska in the 1940s and 1950s. Uncle Chet Luckert and his family came up annually from South Omaha to spend a summer vacation in one of the little cabins. I went to church camp at the camp facilities with dining hall, crude dorms, camp buildings. Center High School had its annual school's-out picnic there. And most of our big family reunions on either side were there. Gavin's Point Dam's backing Lewis & Clark Lake up across the northern border of Knox County completely altered the landscape, as the Missouri silted in and became a marsh of braided rivulets much like the Platte, except for its main channel, and the Niobrara, for the same reason, silted in and flooded out the old town and the old park I grew up with. The new park sits farther west on the high hills above the old park and the confluence of the two rivers, as the new Niobrara also sits up on the hilltops above the old town, now a golf course, on the east side of the Niobrara.
One good memory was the only way we could get to South Dakota without having to drive east to Yankton or west to Spencer, the paddle-wheel ferry chugging from a spot a bit east of the present Standing Bear Bridge over to the tiny SD hillside village of Running Water. Cars would line up to drive aboard, and then everyone would get out of the cars and stand at the railings, marvelling at the huge, then dangerous Big Muddy, as the ferry skirted boils and sandbars to make a big curve across the river. The whole time-consuming process was in the days when we still had patience, of necessity.
Third cousin Mark Donley Feddersen sent me a much better 1948 view of the ferry after I made this entry, so I insert it here.
Niobrara State Park had a closed-water system, meaning that it had fresh water into it off the Mormon Canal, at that time a hidden channel behind a screen of trees and shrubs around the western edge, and, yes, dating from the 1846 winter a group of Mormons came up by Ponca invitation from the major Mormon site of Kanesville, now Council Bluffs, and mostly froze to death; a small monument (of which I also have family photos--see next entry) sits southwest of the old park site. The park basically ran from a small lagoon at the south end by the entrance, seen in the photo below, to the large lagoon at the north end where there was swimming and a diving tower. At the south end was a popular swinging bridge, and here are some photos of it, the pair of Mom and me on it.
More clearly in the background of the pair below are the tiny cabins along curved side roads at the front/south end of the park, as well as one of the large rustic shelter houses that had big stone fireplaces and picnic tables. There were also larger log cabins for rent toward the middle of the park. The supertintendent's house was across the highway south of the entrance, with a small area of caged exotic birds such as golden pheasants, peacocks, chukar, and an eagle and animals like rabbits, foxes, two fawns. [See next entry.] The major park road went about a third of the way in and then became a one-way loop to the north end. Nothing is left of the old park but a marsh of hillocks of tangled trees, cattails and other water weeds in shallow water, and the swift, narrow channel at the western edge.
When we didn't have color film, rare and expensive then, hand-colored tinting filled in the sepia or black-and-white prints, of which this is a prime bad example, though the pink blotch comes from something dropped on it much later. Dad and I are at a family picnic, the Adirondack-style rustic furniture the reason I include this photo. The plentiful rough wooden chairs, benches, and tables alike, painted white, were usually grouped near free-standing stone fireplaces.
Look who's a baby on the Fourth of July, 1946! David Larry Koftan, shown off by his Aunt Audree, who's still holding him as Grandma Fern makes faces. Then Audree mugs. If you look at the car in the background above, you'll see first Earl (I think) and then Fern (the same dress) leaning on it to talk to its occupants.
Laurence is at the left on the Adirondack bench and Fern at the right, Velma obviously behind the camera, since she's never pictured. She probably didn't want credit for these fuzzy photos. Below Audree is holding Penny Jean in a partially exposed-photo fog, but what I like is the diving tower with all the men lined up in the background. This is the north lagoon, as safe and as big as swimming pools got then, this one as popular as it looks. (By my sisters' time 25 years later, a modern elevated pool was built.) Nearby were combination toilets-changing rooms and a large pop stand open on four sides that served all kinds of nostalgic goodies, including the dark brown ridged bottles of Orange Crush and the first Nehi pops I ever had (grape was my favorite, though the orange, strawberry, and root beer weren't bad). Of course, the bottles were heavy glass, not plastic litter or recyclable aluminum. Pop then was a nickel. Candy bars, hot dogs--I don't remember what all, but the stand was always crowded. West of it a ways was a large stone-edged goldfish pond and, consequently, the most prized shelter houses were near it.
In both the diving-tower photo and the one above of Earl leaning against the tree, usually our lifeguard/swimming teacher, one can see the park's popularity with cars parked around the lagoon. (Of course, this was the Fourth.) In another overexposed photo below looking south, on the north side of the swimming lagoon, the posts in the water with a cable through them marked the edge of the safe area for children. I'm at the right holding on to the cable, Mike looking at the camera, Denny going off right (?). Finally, we three boys, Mike turned looking at me, Denny on the hood of our car.
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