The Gallstone in Omaha's Gut

Borders are one of mankind's enduring geographic obsessions. Sometimes, natural features lend a hand to form them...until they decide to switch places overnight like the Missouri River did in 1877, stranding a little part of Iowa on the wrong side of the river. This anomaly eventually landed at the center of three Supreme Court cases, each one attempting to untangle tricky ideas such as avulsion and diversity of citizenship. Welcome to Carter Lake!

Transcript

Kennen 0:13

Hi. Welcome back episode five. As I mentioned in the last episode, we are headed back to the Midwest for this one. Into a political drama between two states. And it centers on a very specific piece of land, which is a geographic anomaly. It is called Carter lake Carter lake is a town within the state of Iowa. It is a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska. You can already see our players. Our Nebraska and Iowa and so much for Midwest. Nice. Cause they're going to go to court multiple times. And fight over Carter lake. Now today, Carter lake isn't very large. As of the 2020 census 3,791 people lived there. So it's not very big by many standards. Carter lake is bound by Omaha on the west and the south. And then by epi. We airfield to the east. Why is Carter lake surrounded by all the stuff in Nebraska? Because Carter lake is nominally in Nebraska. And that is why. We're talking about it today. Carter lake is then bound. By Carter lake to the north, which is split between Nebraska and Iowa. Carter lake is an exclave of the state of Iowa. It used to be an Iowa. It is not any more. Which the Supreme court, how to parse out for Nebraska and Iowa. Why. This flood was different from say other floods. It's very bizarre. But I love when states Sue each other. It's fascinating. So if you've ever flown into Omaha, And then driven into downtown Omaha. You will drive through Carter lake. As I said, it is an exclave of Iowa. So an exclave is a portion of a territory separated from the main part of the territory by surrounding alien territory. And this differs from an enclave. Which is territory completely surrounded by another territory. Carter lake. If you look at a little map, the, uh, border juts out. So it's not completely surrounded by Nebraska, but there's a little sliver of Carter lake that touches the Missouri river. Which then allows it to be part of Iowa except only through a water boundary. Carter lake Iowa is the only part of Iowa. West of the Missouri river. Normally rivers make very convenient boundaries. They're already there. There's no need to really. Mark it out in a straight line, like other states. It just exists. However, because it's not manmade, rivers are subject to change. And that's what happened in March, 1877. There was a massive flood. That in one single night. Changed the course of the Missouri river. And then in 1892, the Supreme court had to step in and say, yes, this piece of land belongs to Iowa. And much like other stories we've talked about in this podcast. It does get brought up all fairly often in newspapers. In fact, the Omaha world Herald ran an article recently. Describing Carter lake this way. So as quote. Depending on your perspective, Carter lake is either a feisty little Lichtenstein squeezed between Nebraska and Iowa. Or a gallstone and Omaha's got. Either way, the town of 3,200 souls. Deserves respect for having survived its history of geographic and political whiplash. And to quote. That's a fun way to put it. You're there Lichtenstein or a gallstone in our gut. But then the political whiplash is real as we'll get into. So to talk about the actual lake Carter lake. Carter lake used to be part of the river. It was the border between Nebraska and Iowa, as it is today. The river forms the entire border, except for this little exclave and the flood in 1877 shifted the revert miles east. And cut off. What is known as the Saratoga banned from the rest of the river and made it into an Oxbow lake. This lake was first called cutoff lake. And then lake Nacoma and then finally Carter lake. The name was changed to Carter lake after Levi Carter's wife donated money to construct a public park along the shore, and you can still go visit the public park. It's very beautiful. Just very kind of calm. Uh, wasteless in the midst of. Omaha. The lake covers 315 acres and has a maximum depth of 25.4 feet. Boating as legal as is fishing. But fishing comes with more restrictions. You can find numerous types of fish. And the Iowa state government even says that all of them are safe for consumption. Being so close to Omaha, it has been a center for Omaha recreation since the creation of the lake. The areas for stroller Kosta was found near at the lake. With a resort, a public pavilion and picnic facilities. However, because of its political grayness. It has attracted fringe industries, notably gambling and other illegal entertainments. So why, why all this political drama, you think that it's fairly straight forward? The river shifted overnight. To a new course to the east. So it should be part of Nebraska because now, now the river is shifted. Now there's land between the what once was the Saratoga bend modern Carter week. And Iowa. Legally verus lots of terms for this, but there are two very important. Accretion and avulsion. So both parties essentially have to agree on boundaries, even though it's delineated by a river. And you'll find that many states who border another with a river. Have very different ways of defining that boundary. For example, Nebraska and Iowa, Use the center line of the river. To demarcate the boundary. If you're in Ohio or Kentucky. The boundary is very different. It's the low water mark. so most of the Ohio river is in the state of Kentucky. If you drive out of Cincinnati, you'll see that the border starts really fast. As soon as you start crossing a bridge. So there are many different ways of using a river. But the Supreme court. Then has to explore. The these processes, the geographic processes of river building or river destruction or river change. And as I mentioned there, accretion and avulsion. Accretion is a natural gradual alteration of a riverine environment. Avulsion is a rapid sudden change to the riverine environment. Accretion is very common. It's hard to see because it goes little by little. But it's how sandbars form. And how maybe one bank gets eroded, but another one gets built up over time. Avulsion that happens extremely fast. In this case, it changes the entire river course. And this has happened before hurricanes can do it or massive, massive floods can do it. An 1836. New Orleans went against the United States, federal government. In talking about. Riverine boundaries. The Supreme court held in that court case. That one streams change gradually. The same rules apply. Even though Louisiana would. Maybe lose a piece of land here in Mississippi would gain land. The boundary would stay the same in between the two of them in the middle of the river. And so this is what Nebraska is banking on. It was a very important court case. Deciding how river boundaries work. The city of new Orleans depends heavily on the Mississippi river. And so everybody kind of was thought. This is the court case. That's going to stand. And in that court case, notably, they also said that these rules apply if a stream dries up. Sometimes that's the case. And so you can find very strange. Borders between states. And if you look at the map of Louisiana, Mississippi, And even Arkansas and Tennessee is. Just very messy as the Mississippi river winds, its way down to the Gulf of Mexico. They determined that the test for accretion and gradual change is called imperceptibility. If you can see it happening, it is not accretion. And so this becomes. The sticking point for the state of Iowa. The Supreme court and now their court case in Nebraska versus Iowa in 18 92. They say that any land lost to the river generally does not remain as a solid chunk, but it will dissolve in the water. The Missouri river is very infamous for being quite muddy and full of sediment. Any disappearance of land on one side, it does not necessarily mean the land is added to a corresponding side. Sometimes the land just disappears and floats down the river and into the Gulf of Mexico. And they even said, quote, no engineering skill is sufficient to say we're the earth and the bank washed away and disintegrating into the river, finds its rest and abiding place. And the quote. Seems fairly logical. I mean, no one knows where that tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny piece of clay is going to end up. So they would say normally the law of accretion would apply. Which would render the borders, the new river and give that new part of land. To Nebraska. But the flood of 1877 happened in one night. So they said, this is clearly a Volusion. I mean, you could clearly see that when the river went back to its banks. It had clearly changed. People woke up one morning. The river was there. The next morning, it was in a different place. They saw it happen. That's at least with us Supreme court argued. Carter lake therefore was given to Iowa. It became a very sore spot. Between the two states. Not necessarily that they hated each other. But it was just kind of a little, little red river rock stuck in Nebraska shoe. So Carter lake, after this was considered a part of the city of council Bluffs. And they would pay. Taxes to the city of council Bluffs. But they could not receive any utilities because it was on the opposite side of the river. And the city council Bluffs did not want to go for the expense. Of finding a way to get the utilities to the other side. So eventually this little piece of land seceded from council Bluffs, and they said, well, we want to join Omaha then. Oh, Maha flat out refuses. No. No Carter lake. You're part of Iowa and we're not going to take you. So they eventually had to become self-sufficient and create their own municipality. Which is the same. Place we know today, Carter lake. Now this wasn't the end. So in 1892 Supreme court says Iowa, it's yours. Shasha Nebraska. However, the two states come together in 1943. And agree that the stabilized channel of the Missouri river would be the boundary between the two states. So by stabilized channel, they're trying to say, look, whichever one remains after the flat or. If there's a branch, blah, blah, blah. It's still that stable channel. And because of that. They would seed lands that had been put on other sides because of avulsion. That they would then give each other the land. And so that there would be a very clear. A very clean and clear border. The Missouri river. However, this didn't really go anywhere. Carter lake remained in Iowa. And in fact. In 1972 and another case went to the Supreme court. To clarify how all of this worked. This Supreme court case was not necessarily explicitly about Carter lake and where borders were. But how borders worked. Between the two states. They had to clean up a bunch of deeds, which is what that Supreme court case was about. And because they wanted to swap plans just essentially. The Supreme court had to step in. And tell them how deeds function between the two states, because they were legally two different documents. It was very quiet. But six years later, they went to the Supreme court again. And this time it wasn't between two states or any government really. It was between a private citizen and a government contractor. And I'll the cases called Owen equipment and erection company fi Kroger in 1978. Kroger was an Iowa woman. To Sue Omaha public power district because her husband had been electrocuted. By this time, The city's contracted out with Omaha being surrounded by it to provide utilities. Now when Omaha was faced with this suit. They then tried to Sue the contractor. Oh. And equipment and erection company, because they had owned and operated the crane. That was working on the equipment that eventually caused this man to be electrocuted. So the woman then amended her case to exclude Omaha. And go directly after the contractor as well. However. The Supreme court. Decided that this case really couldn't stand. Because the woman had one successively up through all the states and by the time it made it to the Supreme court. The Supreme court stepped in and basically said that she had not been able to Sue. Because I want to equipment was an Iowa company based in Carter lake and they had operated and sued. On the basis that it was in Nebraska. Because it was a contractor for Nebraska city. They decided that there was what they call no diversity of citizenship. Because despite being contracted by Nebraska. It was an Iowa company. So it should've stayed within the Iowa state court system. And so once again, they had to clear up how does Carter lake fit into the local geography? Now. It may seem very bizarre for a city of this size to have gone to the Supreme court three times. That's exceptional. Carter lake. Home of many Supreme court cases, three it's a lot for a tiny town. But as a result, nebraska's now fine with it. There's been no recent developments regarding Carter lake. I was fine with it. Carter lake Iowa was fine with it. In fact, I think one of the last times that kind of became really famous was in a viral video of a hailstorm. Which. Was really crazy. It broke the windows and people's homes. And that was on and you could see from their house, uh, the hail hitting Carter lake. Crazy. So, if you're ever flying into Omaha, you can't avoid Carter lake. If you really want to, by going up to the north and around. However, if you're going straight to downtown. You'll pass through Carter lake and you'll drive on what is one of the shortest state highways. Because it is a half mile long Iowa highway 1 65. It does have a sign that says welcome to Iowa. However, when you drive the half mile further, there isn't a sign that says welcome to Nebraska. Only Iowa put up the signs. I think it's kind of fun, I love stories like this about. Random geographic oddities. But Carter lake, I mean, who knew that fighting for fighting over a border would be so hard. After a flood. But here we are. So hopefully you don't live in near a river. And slowly see your land eroded. Or swallowed up and in one night, I just remember accretion and avulsion every time you see a river and think. Hmm, interesting how those borders are formed. That's it for today? Supreme court drama, Carter lake Iowa. Which should have been part of Nebraska, but isn't. We'll see you next week. As we go to Chicago and talk about another river. And it's drama.