David C. Butler

(1829-1891) lived near Pawnee City and in Lincoln. Farmer, businessman, politician, known for serving as the first state governor of Nebraska from 1867 to 1871, he was instrumental in locating the state capitol in Lincoln, in encouraging development of a state university, penitentiary, and insane asylum, and in urging the development of railroads and the establishment of a Bureau of Immigration; charged with misappropriation of state funds, he was impeached in 1871 but in 1877 the action was expunged from official state records, and his debts were recouped by the state in 1895. Consult Omaha Daily Bee obituary, May 26, 1891, p. 5 and Theodore Hodwalker, “Public Career of David Butler, First Governor of Nebraska,” Master’s thesis, University of Nebraska, 1938, and James C. Olson, History of Nebraska (University of Nebraska Press, 1955) 130-131, 150-160 and American National Biography, Sup 2 (2005) 64-65.

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