Editing Decatur, Nebraska (section)

==History==
The area was long occupied by the [[Omaha people|Omaha]] Native Americans, who settled along the creeks and river  Explorers [[Meriwether Lewis]] and [[William Clark (explorer)|William Clark]] passed through the area in 1804 as their expedition traveled via the upper Missouri River on their way to and from the Pacific Coast, in their exploration of the [[Louisiana Purchase]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.casde.unl.edu/history/counties/burt/decatur/ | title=Decatur, Burt County | publisher=University of Nebraska | work=Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies | access-date=July 31, 2014}}</ref>

The first European settler in the area was a man named Woods, who settled at the mouth of Wood Creek (his namesake) in 1837. [[Stephen Decatur Bross|Stephen Decatur]] arrived in the area in 1841. A former schoolteacher in New Jersey and New York, he had abandoned his wife and two children when he migrated to the West. Here he changed his name, dropping his former surname of "Bross."<ref name="Bueler">{{cite book|last=Bueler|first=Gladys R.|title=Colorado's Colorful Characters |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fb0WAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Stephen+Decatur+Bross%22+Colorful |orig-year=1974|year=1981|publisher=Pruett Publishing Company|location=Boulder, Colorado|isbn=0-87108-595-X|page=33}}</ref> His farm was called Decatur Springs, after a spring which supplied water to the village for the next century.<ref name = "history">{{cite web|url=http://www.ci.decatur.ne.us/history.htm|title=History|work=Decatur, Nebraska|access-date=July 31, 2013}}</ref>

In 1854, the U.S. [[Commissioner of Indian Affairs]] purchased 300,000 acres of land from the Omaha, including the area which is now Decatur. The town of Decatur was incorporated in 1856 under the name "The Decatur Townsite & Ferry Company." The other incorporators included Thomas Whiteacre, T. H. Hineman, George Mason, and Herman Glass. [[Peter Sarpy]] helped lay out the town, which developed around his Indian trading post at the mouth of Wood Creek. He also owned [[Fontenelle's Post]] and is the namesake for Sarpy County.

The patents for the town were granted by the legislature on May 1, 1862. Following the dissolution of the Decatur Townsite and Ferry Company, the town was renamed Decatur Village in 1858.<ref name = "history" />