I shall rise and pass. Bury my heart at Wounded Knee. Writing from his temporary home in France during the 1920s, poet Stephen Vincent Benet was homesick. American names are a glittering kaleidoscope, a shining melting pot of other people, other cultures, other countries and old ideas. Like sparks from clashing steel, thousands of shining names flew from the increasing martial contacts between those native Americans and the generations of European settlers that began arriving in the 1600s.
Legend says that the explorers met with local Indian tribes on the spot.
The name Council Bluff stuck. Later, someone made it plural. Other cultures left their marks, too. Some young communities decided to try names that had already proven themselves. In Missouri are the communities of Nevada, Cuba and Mexico.