If history is your "thing," you'll find plenty to stir the imagination at Indian Cave. In addition to the petroglyphs left by those mysterious inhabitants of long ago, you'll find the reconstructed mid-19th Century river settlement known as St. Deroin, the first townsite in Nemaha County.

In 1804, Lewis and Clark recorded that they passed a small trading fort, located about 23% miles above the mouth of the Big Nemaha River. On July 15, 1830, 125,000 acres were set aside by the Treaty of Prairie du Chien for the homeless offspring left behind by traders and trappers who married Indian women. Son of a French man and an Otoe woman, Joseph Deroin moved onto the tract from the Platte River in the early 1840s. He set up a trading post and, in 1853, laid out the village that bears his name.

In its early days, St. Deroin had 232 mixed heritage residents, including 50 Iowas, 47 Omahas, 21 Otoes, 3 Sioux and 111 orphans. The village was one of a chain of small settlements that served as trading and supply posts for river traffic in the 1870s. A bustling town of 300 people before the turn of the century, it was doomed by the ever-shifting river channel and an apparent outbreak of cholera. By the 1920s, St. Deroin was virtually abandoned except for the one-room school.

Legends, however, abound about the once thriving village. Apparently, the "Saint" was attached to the name sometime after it was established, in the hope of attracting more settlers. Joseph Deroin himself was evidently a colorful and controversial character. Described as "overbearing and tyrannical," those traits eventually proved fatal. Deroin was determined to collect $6 for a pig from a settler despite a warning to stay off the man's land. The settler dropped him with one shot and was ultimately acquitted of any crime. Local tradition holds that Deroin was buried astride his horse in the town cemetery.

Another "graveyard" legend centers on a fellow named A. J. Ritter, who lost an arm while doing- a little "fishing" with dynamite. His arm was buried west of the town. Later, when Ritter died, he was buried in the St. Deroin Cemetery. Some locals say that on certain nights, Ritter still rises to search for his lost arm. You can learn more about this fascinating area at the interpretive log cabin, located near the original townsite. Although built recently, the cabin was carefully constructed by methods used in the 1850s. Note the split wood shingles, handmade iron hardware and the fireplace built from limestone found on the park.