Elementary students from Wallace listen to Clint Livingston of Lewellen, (formerly a teacher at Hayes Center) who recreated a trader's tent at the 2008 "Grand Duke Alexis Rendezvous" near Hayes Center. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette) [Click to enlarge]

HAYES CENTER -- The American government allotted explorers Lewis and Clark $4,000 to purchase "gifts" of scissors, gewgaws, trinkets, beads and bells to give the Indians they encountered as they traipsed across Indian lands to the Pacific Ocean 200 years ago. In exchange, Lewis and Clark wanted safe passage -- and furs.

"Furs were worth lots of money," "trader" Clint Livingston, of Lewellen, told elementary students on "Student Day" of the 2008 Grand Duke Alexis Rendezvous Sept. 26, 27 and 28 at Camp Hayes northeast of Hayes Center.

Beaver skins were "the first gold mine in America," Livingston told students. An early businessman -- John Jacob Aster -- became the richest man in the world trading beaver pelts and other furs, he said.

America's rendezvous period followed Lewis and Clark's expedition, starting about 1820-1825 when civilization-shy mountain men, trappers and traders began to gather in their own back yards, rather than trek "back east" to St. Louis to do their trading and resupplying.

The rendezvous period started dying out, and by 1840, beavers were near extinction in the mountains, fur prices were falling and fashion was changing in Europe.

After the fur trade died off, Livingston said, buyers wanted buffalo hides -- for coats, lap robes, rugs. New mechanical machinery was running on tanned buffalo leather belts, he said.

This is the era portrayed by living historians at the Grand Duke Alexis Rendezvous, a recreation of the celebrations and activities associated with the Russian duke's great buffalo hunt in January 1872, near what would become Hayes Center.

Alexis Alexandrovich was sent by his father on a goodwill tour of America, where, living historian Jahnis Abelite told students, "I met your Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson, from whom I purchased $20,000 in pistols for the Russian Army. I paid in gold, part of which came from our sale of Alaska to American government."

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The Grand Duke, U.S. Army generals Phil Sheridan and George Armstrong Custer, scout William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Sioux Chief Spotted Tail and 100 of Spotted Tail's best braves hunted buffalo in the hills near today's Camp Hayes. The Duke used one of his new Smith & Wesson pistols, as well as Buffalo Bill's rifle, to bring down buffalos, whose hides and tails he shipped back to Russia, Abelite told students.