On July 23, 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark raised the first American flag over Nebraska near present-day Bellevue. The area was familiar territory to such explorers and scouts as Kit Carson, John Frémont and Lucien Fontenelle. By the late 1820s Bellevue was a busy trading post and shipping port near the strategic junction of the Platte and Missouri rivers. In the 1830s Bellevue became the headquarters for a government Indian agency; soon after, the first Nebraska missionaries came to town. Learn More...