The fertile North Loup Valley provided food and construction materials for the region’s early settlers. When they arrived in 1872, they were met by Jack Swearengen, a trapper, guide, and government scout who lived nearby in a dugout in the white chalk bluffs above the valley. The highest hill became known as Happy Jack’s Peak and served as a lookout point against surprise Indian attacks. In 1877, Ed Wright began mining the chalk, and with stone cut from the bluffs he completed a general store in Scotia in 1887 that still stands two miles north. Other pioneer residents soon used chalk in their building foundations. After standing idle for years, the mine reopened in the 1930s under an Omaha paint company, and the chalk was used for paint, whitewash, cement, polishes, and chicken feed. These calcarious rock formations, visible throughout the North Loup Valley, were permanently preserved here in 1967 when the Nebraska State Game and Parks Commission purchased the mine area for use as a wayside park.