Looking backward for thirteen years, it is difficult for me to realize that at the beginning of my fourth term as state regent, in 1902, there were as yet only two chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Nebraska. From 1894 to 1902 there had been three other state regents besides myself; and it was surely through no lack of diligence or patriotism that the organization grew so slowly. Mrs. S. C. Langworthy had been appointed organizing regent at Seward in 1896; Mrs. J. A. Cline at Minden, and Mrs. Sarah G. Bates at Long Pine in 1897; and Miss Anna Day at Beatrice in 1899. The total membership in the state probably did not exceed two hundred and fifty, and these, with the exception of the regents already named, belonged to the Deborah Avery and the Omaha chapters. In 1899, Mrs. Eliza Towle reported to the president general and the national board of management that the Omaha chapter had decided to place a monument at Fort Calhoun--undoubtedly at the suggestion of Mrs. Harriet S. MacMurphy, who was much interested in the early history of that place. As the hundredth anniversary of the acquisition of the Louisiana territory approached, and interest began to center around the expedition of Lewis and Clark, it was found that the only point touched in Nebraska by these explorers which could be positively identified was old Council Bluff, near Fort Calhoun; and here the Omaha chapter had decided to erect a monument. At a meeting of the Omaha chapter in 1901, the state regent directed the attention of the members to this fact, and it was voted to enlarge the scope of the undertaking, to make the marking of the site a state affair, and to ask the coˆperation of the Sons of the American Revolution and of the State Historical Society. This action was ratified at the first conference of the Daughters of the American Revolution held in Nebraska, the meeting having been called especially for that purpose, in October, 1902. A committee in conjunction with the Sons of the American Revolution asked the state legislature of 1903 for a sum of five thousand dollars to buy the site of Fort Atkinson and to erect a suitable monument, under the auspices of the Sons and the Daughters of the American Revolution, the monument to be erected according to plans and specifications furnished by the two societies.