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Submitted: 5/30/06 • Approved: 7/14/12 • Last Updated: 2/16/13 • R6260-G6259-S3
Inscription:
Nelson
Mother
Oluffine N.
1853 - 1943
Father
Peter B.
1853 - 1937
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The following information comes from an article by George Ledbetter in the Chadron Record newspaper, Chadron, Nebraska: the 2012-Fur-Trade-Days Supplement.
Peter B. Nelson may be best remembered because of the Nelson Opera House on Main Street, a distinctive historic building on which his name is prominently displayed. He was born in Norway in 1853 and went to sea as a teenager but soon tired of the dangers and rigor of the life, and decided to pursue a different future in America. He too was lured to the Black Hills by the gold rush but ended up working at an Yellow Medicine Indian agency near Ft. Pierre (S.D.) and later became a trader himself. Eventually he and his family settled on Bordeaux Creek [near Chadron to the east], where Nelson got the mail contract between the military post at Ft. Robinson and the Indian Agency at Pine Ridge.
When Chadron was established in 1885, Nelson opened a store there. The building burned a few years later, and in 1888 he built the Opera House, which provided a place for live entertainment and meetings for many years. Nelson died in 1937. The house he built in 1878 is still standing, and is considered the oldest house in Dawes County.
Contributed on 5/30/06 by JimNebraska99
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Record #: 6260