698. Huntington, Cedar County (NE15)

The courthouse is alright.  There’s no flag out front.  An annex built in 2009 blends in a little, and the proverbial “they” were nice enough to put in a stone to tell you when it was built.  I’m sure the seemingly empty tower must be interesting for internal use.  That’d be a great lunch spot (or place for a smoke break if you are into such carcinogenic delights).  Overall, I feel a little meh about the entire thing.  That’s not its fault.  It’s just a courthouse like any other.   

A lot of the caches in the region were somehow related to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and several counties’ caches chose to focus on individual members of the expedition. Consequently, I found myself studying the county caches, asking, “Who the heck is Private Shannon?”

George Shannon was a member of the expedition who gained a bit of a reputation as a fool after getting lost from the expedition twice—once on his own and once because of ill-informed orders. He later lost his leg in a skirmish while escorting guests, a chieftain and his wife, to Washington to meet President Jefferson. Once he returned, he took up the practice of law, served in the Kentucky House of Representatives and later as a circuit judge, was appointed as a U.S. attorney in Missouri by Andrew Jackson, had a failed campaign for the U.S. Senate, and died at the age of 51 after traveling to defend a client. Quite a life for a fool, to be sure.

Please forgive the wandering subject because none of that had anything to do with the cache directly, but by now, you should know how I roll. Passing by all the Shannon-themed caches, I stopped at the county museum. The log cabin in the back had some relevance to Louis and Clark, but I could find no plaque explaining it. Therefore, I assume it’s a re-creation of a period cabin. And on the side, an ammo can! I’ll take it! With my business complete, I began down the road again, intent on finding a cache in…