Brule, Nebraska: Named for Five Thousand Sioux

Brule, nine miles west of Ogallala on the South Platte River, was founded by Isaac and Elizabeth Barton, who purchased a quarter-section of Keith County land from the Union Pacific in January of eighteen eighty-six for six hundred and forty dollars. The name Brule recalls the roughly five thousand Brulé Sioux said to have camped along this stretch of the South Platte. A siding had existed here since about eighteen eighty-two.

A lumberyard and store followed the Bartons, and the village platted in February of eighteen eighty-six. Brule incorporated later and today is a village of fewer than four hundred people, the South Platte flowing nearby through cottonwood corridors that once sheltered one of the largest encampments of the Lakota nation.