(theme music) Narrator: Up next on Nebraska Stories, fantastic day trips across the state... First, meet the artful characters of a tiny village... Visit one of the largest private nature centers in the country... Hit the trail on horseback in the Wildcat Hills... See the stunning sculpture of Chief Standing Bear ...

Hike one of America's top 10 trails... And, travel back in time to a turn of the century town.

(guitar strums) NARRATOR: There's Ralph Hodson, little Audrey, Ralph and Hank.

The friendly villagers of Taylor.

Old-fashioned, kind of stoic folks.

A little stiff.

Wooden, actually.

MARAH SANDOZ: I want as many wooden people as there are actual people in Taylor, which is only 182, I can do it.

NARRATOR: Marah Sandoz is one of the actual people, and creator of the wooden ones.

Her name begs the question, an d yes, her husband is related to Nebraska-born writer, Mari Sandoz.

A couple decades ago, she got involved with a local economic development group, brainstorming about ways to help the fading village that sits on the edge of the Sandhills near Calamus Reservoir.

MARAH SANDOZ: What can we do to stop the traffic?

What can we create for people to see?

Photo opportunities.

And, so we went back to, okay, what do we have?

We have a couple of really cool historic buildings, let's go back and capitalize on that.

Let's go back to that era, and let's recreate what was when this town was booming, when this town was bustling.

What did it look like?

NARRATOR: It became Sandoz's project.

A self-described, self-trained artist with experience using wood and paint, she hatched the idea of life-sized plywood cutouts depicting people who might have lived in the village between 1890 and 1920.

Those were the boom years, when Taylor had twice as many people as today.

The first villagers arrived in 2003.

Herbert and Alice, near the historic, now unused Pavillion Hotel.

MARAH: People thought they were fun, they were different.

People said they had to stop and wait, cause they thought that the people wanted to cross the street, they'd wave at them.

It created a lot of local chatter.

NARRATOR: The villager population has since grown to about 100 of the cutouts.

Sandoz does most of the work, with a little help from family and locals.

The Village Development Group and sponsoring organizations pay for the supplies, she donates her time.

A few depict real people, but location is often a starting point for the artist.

MARAH: So, a lot of my ideas come from seeing a spot.

I tend to see canvases in the community.

What would've been happening there in 1910?

NARRATOR: Like the yard of Mary Ellen and John Shunneson, home to love-struck villagers Charles and Louise.

MARY ELLEN SHUNNESON: Oh, I love it.

I love it.

I didn't know what it was gonna be and, you know, and, I just kinda feels like me and my husband.

MIKE TOBIAS: Do people stop?

MARY ELLEN: Oh yes.

Yes, yes, yes, they stop, come up, take their pictures, write things down, you know, and, I think they make the circuit and try and see every one of 'em.

VISITOR: So, what's the story behind the wooden, ah, things STORE OWNER: The wooden people?

They're a little of a tourism gimmick.

NARRATOR: The villagers caused a pair of westbound travelers to stop by convenient accident in a Town Square shop called Mara's Treasures.

JOSEPH KAUP: Our first reaction, we thought it was real.

You know, real, you know, just kinda, somebody standing there, you know.

(laughs) PAUL IGNOWSKI: It's kind of an inviting look to it, you know?

It makes you want to find out more about it, so actually, we're thrilled that we stopped here and find out this is where they're being made, and a little bit about the villagers, as they call them.

NARRATOR: Sandoz's shop is something of a byproduct of the project, in addition to displaying work from other local artists, she makes and sells custom-ordered villagers about 20 a year.

These, she paints in color.

Sandoz believes the Villagers project is helping the town as a whole.

MARAH: Ladies groups are coming up for day trips, car clubs are coming up just to drive around Taylor, gives them a destination point.

And, they eat at the restaurant and they buy gas at the gas station and, we've begun to bring revenue into your town.

NARRATOR: But right now there's only so much revenue the villagers can generate for Taylor, because there aren't a lot of places to spend money.

Just a handful of business in the only town in one of the state's least populated counties.

And that population has been declining for decades.

Sandoz believes the villagers project can change that.

MARAH: We're creating a really positive climate for antique and retro stuff, and so we'll see if we can get some other little business around the square that can fill those tourism niches.

NARRATOR: For now, Sandoz will do her part by creating more villagers, six a year, until there's enough wooden people to symbolically double the town's population.

All with the hope that real people will start coming to Taylor instead of leaving.

(dramatic music) (tranquil music) (birds singing) NEAL RATZLAFF: A special place to me is something that renews you in some way, spiritually.

There's something spiritual about this place.

I came here, oh it was late afternoon or early evening, in the early 1960s.

I walked into this simply remarkable place, a forest.

The sun was going down.

There were long shadows.

It was quiet.

Never even occurred to me that a place like this could be present here in Bellevue, Nebraska.

What a wonderful place.

(birds singing) TEACHER: Do you know what this is?

CHILD: Owl.

RATZLAFF: Education is a significant part of Fontenelle Forest.

That makes me feel really good about this place.

TEACHER: It's not really a screech, it's more like a little... (imitates owl) TEACHER: Can you do that?

(class imitates owl) RATZLAFF: There's nothing really more exciting than having a child come up to you when you're walking down the path with a beetle, you know, looking at you saying, "Look at this, what is this?"

(upbeat music) CHILD: I need a little help, because it is stuck to the trees.

BOY: I'll give you help.

(upbeat music) RATZLAFF: I think of discovery.

That's how one needs to approach a place like this, sort of with an open mind and with the idea that, "Well, I'm gonna take what ever "comes my way this day."

Nature's in control here.

We accept each and every organism, whatever it is, on its own terms.

(upbeat music) (bird squawking) RATZLAFF: That's the sort of experience that I get when I go to Fontenelle Forest.

I just don't know what's gonna happen today.

(upbeat music) (birds singing) ♪ ♪ (guitar music) (horse neighing) (guitar music) STARR LEHL: This is a beautiful, beautiful area.

We're very fortunate, in western Nebraska, to have about 30 thousand acres to ride horses.

It's open to the public.

It's so relaxing and so beautiful.

HOLLY NOLTE: I've been coming out here for at least 25, 26 years.

With all the development that's going on, if you didn't have places like this we wouldn't have anywhere where we could go and enjoy and relax.

STARR: Every time we ride, we go to a different place.

There's trails for all levels of riders.

We've got some younger riders with us, or maybe older riders.

HOLLY: My mother, who is 74 years old, rides with me all the time.

STARR: Sometimes we'll take it a little easy or just ride on really nice, flat ground.

Other times we say, okay, we feel a little adventurous today and we go up some pretty steep hills and down some steep hills.

You really have to put a lot of faith in your horse.

ERIN WEATHERMAN: The connection with the horses is unbelievable.

I mean, once you connect with an animal, it's something else.

(guitar music) STARR: And it's really good for them too.

They get bored.

You know, just like people do, and so they (horse neighing) they kind of like to come out and go for a ride once in awhile.

(guitar music) STARR: There's a lot of bikers that come out and ride their bikes out here.

There's back packers.

There's people that actually camp.

Photography, bird watching, wild flower viewing.

There's all of that that you can do out here.

And it's all just beautiful.

(guitar music) (horse neighing) (upbeat music) (drum music) NARRATOR: Alice Erickson is a descendant of a famous Ponca Indian chief.

(drum music) ALICE ERICKSON: He was my great, great, great grandfather and that's how I knew him growing up.

He was family.

(drum music) It wasn't until that I got older, you know, high school, college that I really started digging into it, finding out what I could about him.

(drum music) I want to learn more about him.

I'm trying to adapt some of the traditions from back then and help my children learn them so that they can continue on and share the story of Chief Standing Bear.

(dramatic music) NARRATOR: In 1879, Standing Bear went to court to prove he was a person under the law and in the process redefine what it means to be an American.

Sculptor, Ben Victor, won a commission to depict Standing Bear in bronze.

He began with a clay model and shipped it to Lincoln, Nebraska where people could watch as he worked on the final touches.

BEN VICTOR: It has been just a packed studio every single day and it's gotten so much attention for the project and for Chief Standing Bear.

That spirit of Chief Standing Bear is still alive cause he's still having influence over all these people and that influence is growing and thriving, it's not shrinking and dying.

And so that's why projects like this are so important.

NARRATOR: From this clay model, Ben will cast three 11 foot tall bronze statues.

One for Lincoln, one for St atuary Hall in Washington, DC, and one destined for the only place on Earth Chief Standing Bear wanted to live.

(rushing water) (melodic music) NARRATOR: This is the Ponca homeland in Northeast Nebraska.

Here the Niobrara River flows into the Missouri passing white chalk cliffs sacred to the tribe.

Looking out over the Standing Bear Bridge, Alice sees her family history.

ALICE: Times have changed and we have to change with it.

When my grandma was growing up, she'd gone to boarding school, she knew the Ponca language.

Just hearing stories that she shared and about the time that I wanted to learn more about it, she didn't know it anymore so she couldn't pass it on to us.

(horse whinny) Our tribe undergone a lot.

Having to be... you know, forcefully removed from your homeland, leave everything behind, it's saddening.

NARRATOR: Ben Victor's bronze statue depicts Standing Bear fighting for his freedom.

Exiled to present day Oklahoma, he has walked 500 miles in the dead of winter and almost made it home.

Now in a courtroom in Omaha, he reaches out to the judge.

BEN: You know when you're creating this that people can relate this to the idea of the equality of all humanity under the law, but I had no idea the depth of his leadership and the depth of who he was, his character as a human being.

(instrumental music) (birds) NARRATOR: "I am a man", Standing Bear said at his historic trial, "The same God made us both".

The chief won the right to return to his home, where he died in 1908, surrounded by family.

(rattling) ALICE: Just being on the grounds, having the cemetery close by, having Standing Bear's statue up on the hill, I just feel so close to him, he's here in spirit.

To see his statue up there now, it just means so much.

I don't want to lose that memory.

He's up on that hill and he's overlooking our land and he's with us always.

(instrumental music) ♪ ♪ ♪ MUSIC ♪ ANDREW PETERSON: One of the big appeals of this place is how quiet it can be and the solitude you can find here.

♪ MUSIC ♪ RICHARD DePOPPE: Amazed at the time frame what it takes to build up the formations and then the slow erosion that uncovers what was done.

♪ MUSIC ♪ KATHLEEN HANSEN: Toadstool is always changing.

It is always evolving.

KATHLEEN: They are layers of sandstone and between those layers of sandstone there are layers of clay.

Clay is pretty soft so we get these actual toadstool formations because that clay gets eroded away beneath that sandstone so you get this huge piece of rock standing on top of this little pillar and it looks a little bit like a toadstool.

RICHARD: W e saw a picture that have been taken up here in the hillside and it looked so unusual, we said, we just have to see it RICHARD: Are you ready to see some more?

JULIE: Yeah.

RICHARD: Okay.

RICHARD: S o we altered our plans so we could take this in.

RICHARD: T here's our next post.

♪ MUSIC ♪ KATHLEEN: I t is a place where you can actually walk back through time and get a chance to visualize what life was like before we were even here.

♪ MUSIC ♪ NATE VAN METER: I t's pretty cool, you can get to see tracks from critters that were running around here 30 million years ago.

EMILY VAN METER: We've been hiking a lot.

Getting into the rock and seeing what we can find.

It's just fun for us.

LYDIA VAN METER: I kind of use my hands to climb the rock and steep, my dad helped me climb the steep parts.

JULIE VAN METER: Y ou come out to a place like this and you can't imagine why anybody wouldn't love this, it's just so spectacular.

♪ MUSIC ♪ KATHLEEN: I t is a hidden treasure.

Toadstool's one of the gems not many people know about.

♪ MUSIC ♪ ANDREW: I t's off the beaten path.

ANDREW: I t's lots bigger than I thought it would be.

There's a lot more formations.

ANDREW: It's nice to just not think about anything and just enjoy what you're doing and walking around taking pictures and not really worry about anything else.

That's kind of why I like coming to places like this.

♪ MUSIC ♪ (Birds chirping wind rustling) ♪ ♪ >> WATCH MORE (guitar strum) GAYLE NEUHAUS: I had it in the back of my mind for years but I never said anything to anyone.

(guitar strum) Winnetoon Boardwalk Back in Time 1910, that was pretty much when Winnetoon was at its peak.

I love history.

I belong in 1910.

(laughs) (gentle music) NEUHAUS: I love outhouses, and I wanted to develop that.

(gentle music) The one that's x-rated was original with this spot.

(gentle music) The trading post, some people, they've done some refinishing for said, "We've got a building, we're gonna torch it."

I says, "Oh no, you're not.

"I know what that building is."

So, they gave it to me.

The depot was the last building we moved in.

Creighton was getting rid of their depot, and we inquired if we could have a piece of it to put up here.

So, we took the front of the office area.

95, I think, it got on the National Register.

It belongs to the town, but I got their permission to fill out the papers and take care of it.

And, then, that was a real plus.

Again, it's a nice little building, and it's part of Winnetoon's history.

And mainly it would just be hobos or bums that were in there, once in a while a drunk.

I doubt they even had 10 prisoners over the whole time.

(upbeat music) NEUHAUS: He came in the workshop, and kind of looked around, and once he was going out, I said, "You think you could fix that chair?"

He says, "I don't know, but I can try.

", and then he was here 21 years.

And he would chainsaw carve, and I would dress like an old-time stripper.

Because I stripped furniture, and the first bus tours we gave, they advertised us as the Cowboy and the Stripper, so, I shocked everybody, and I dressed like a stripper.

(laughs) Only, I was very well covered.

(laughs) (gentle music) NEUHAUS: Some just happened upon it.

They (indistinct speech) house in the middle of nowhere.

Years ago, a guy came through, he was a photographer from New York, and he was just looking for something to take pictures of.

He came through here, and he says, "Whoa."

He spent the whole day, and he's been back twice since.

(upbeat music) NEUHAUS: I guess it's because I want people to enjoy it.

I'm just gonna keep plugging along while I can, and when I die, I hope it's running between buildings.

(upbeat music) ♪ ♪ >> WATCH MORE "NEBRASKA STORIES" ON OUR WEBSITE, FACEBOOK, AND YOUTUBE.

"NEBRASKA STORIES" IS FUNDED IN PART BY THE MARGARET AND MARTHA THOMAS FOUNDATION.

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