Guide Rock

Guide Rock, whose Pawnee name is Pa-hur or Pahur, is a hill in south central Nebraska in the United States. In the traditional Pawnee religion, it was one of five dwelling places of spirit animals with miraculous powers.In 1806, separate expeditions led by Facundo Melgares and Zebulon Pike both journeyed to a large Pawnee village nearby; Pike persuaded the inhabitants to lower the recently received flag of Spain and replace it with that of the United States.The hill's English name was given to the nearby village of Guide Rock, Nebraska.DescriptionGuide Rock is located in Webster County, Nebraska. It lies southeast of the town that bears its name, on the south side of the Republican River and just east of Rankin Creek.Descriptions of the landform vary. The United States Geological Survey classifies it as a "pillar", which it defines as a "ertical, standing, often spire-shaped, natural rock formation". A local writer described it as a "vast rocky bluff". However, the authors of Roadside Geology of Nebraska state that it is "not so much a rock as a loess bluff of modest size". The difference might be due to human action: in 1973, it was reported that of the five sacred places of the Pawnee, four, including this one, had been "extensively damaged or totally destroyed".