Sculpture Revealed of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American doctor

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Buffalo's Fire

Buffalo's Fire

June 25, 2021

The Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs revealed a sculpture of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte on Thursday, June 17, 2021. Dr. Picotte, daughter of Omaha Chief Iron Eye (Joseph LaFlesche), dreamed of becoming a doctor. Little did she know, she would become the first Native American doctor and one of the most extraordinary figures in American history.

Dr. Picotte was born on the Omaha Reservation in northeast Nebraska in 1865 and died in 1915. She became the first Native person to earn a medical degree in 1889. After receiving her degree, she returned to the reservation to care for Native and non-Native residents, and two years before her death, Picotte opened a hospital in Walthill, Nebraska.

“We are honoring our relative, we are honoring history by making history today. We are celebrating the legacy of a tribal member that had worked through hardship, hard times, but persevered” said Everett Baxter Jr., Chairman of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska. “For her to see a problem and to identify rather than getting upset, she went along and got herself educated and came home and brought back the knowledge. She created a hospital with not a whole lot of resources. She got it done…This is history celebrating history.”

In her career, she served more than 1,300 people over 450 square miles. The sculpture serves as a lasting legacy to our country’s first Native American physician.

The sculpture will be placed on Centennial Mall in a space next to the Scottish Rite Temple across from the State Office building between L and M streets. Dedication of the finalized bronze sculpture will be on October 11, 2021, Indigenous Peoples Day.

(Georgiana Ausan)

Buffalo's Fire

Location: Bismarck, North Dakota
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