Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainPioneer Burial Ground South of Springfield, Nebraska
Off State Highway 50, south of Springfield, Springfield, NE 68059
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages — daylight hours only
Cost
Free
Free public cemetery during daylight; after-hours visits prosecuted as trespassing
Access
Limited Access
Rural cemetery with grass and uneven ground
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1869 · Nebraska Pioneer Cemetery · Rattlesnake Pete Liddiard Burial · Buffalo Bill Wild West Show Connection · Sarpy County Settlement History
Ball Cemetery is located approximately fifteen minutes south of Springfield, Nebraska, in rural Sarpy County, on a small rise just north of the Platte River bottomlands. The cemetery was founded around 1869 to serve the Ball family and other early settlers of the Springfield area, then a developing agricultural community in the Nebraska Territory just southwest of Omaha. The cemetery covers a small footprint, with most burials dating from the 1870s through the early 20th century.
The most-documented interment is William H. Liddiard, known to the touring public as Rattlesnake Pete during his years with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Liddiard's tenure with the show placed him on tour during the 1880s and 1890s, the period of the Wild West Show's greatest national and European reach. He returned to Nebraska and was buried at Ball Cemetery on his death. His marker remains a destination for visitors interested in the Wild West Show's reach into rural Nebraska.
Members of the Ball family, the cemetery's namesake settlers, are interred in the cemetery's original section, along with several additional Springfield-area pioneer families. The cemetery has not been an active burial ground for many decades, and the rural location and absence of formal caretaking institution has made maintenance dependent on volunteer effort.
The cemetery has been the subject of repeated vandalism over the years, with several markers damaged or displaced. A neighboring landowner has historically served as informal caretaker of the property, with reputation in local oral tradition for actively discouraging after-hours visitors — the source of the often-repeated regional account that trespassers are met with a shotgun. Visitors should approach the cemetery only during daylight hours and respect the small scale of the site and its surrounding private property.
Ball Cemetery is not formally listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it is one of the older surviving pioneer cemeteries in Sarpy County and has been the subject of local historical and genealogical research.
Sources
Ball Cemetery occupies a prominent position in Nebraska paranormal literature relative to its small physical size. The cemetery has been the subject of an Unsolved Mysteries podcast episode and appears in essentially all regional surveys of the state's haunted destinations.
The most-told account involves a tall male apparition observed walking the cemetery after dark. Multiple visitor reports across several decades have described the figure as wearing dark 19th-century clothing and possessing what witnesses characterize as a hostile or short-tempered demeanor. The figure is reported to occasionally make physical contact — with visitors describing pushes, scratches, and other minor physical phenomena. These reports are anonymous and unverified, but the consistency of the description across independent accounts has been noted in regional folklore research.
Additional reported phenomena include disembodied laughter, phantom voices in the wooded edges of the cemetery, footsteps following visitors out of the burial ground, and unexplained marks appearing on the doors and hoods of visitors' parked vehicles. Photographs taken at the cemetery have produced orbs, mists, and other unexplained light effects with frequency higher than typical for comparable rural sites.
The cemetery's reputation has produced an ongoing problem of vandalism and after-hours visitation, exacerbating the damage to already-weathered 19th-century markers. The neighboring caretaker's reputation for confronting after-hours visitors is itself part of the regional folklore around the site, and visitors should approach Ball Cemetery only during daylight hours with respect for the burial ground and surrounding private property.
The cemetery's small size, rural isolation, and Wild West Show connection make it an unusual subject within the genre of haunted-cemetery folklore — the lore has consolidated around a specific identified male apparition rather than the more typical generic 'lady in white' or 'soldier ghost' figures that anchor many comparable sites. No definitive historical identification of the figure has been established, though regional speculation has variously connected it to Rattlesnake Pete, a member of the Ball family, or an unidentified victim of 19th-century rural violence.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Visit the small rural cemetery dating to 1869, located approximately fifteen minutes south of Springfield near the Platte River. The cemetery contains pioneer-era Ball family burials and the grave of William H. Liddiard, who toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show as Rattlesnake Pete. Strictly daylight visits only — the adjacent caretaker has historically discouraged after-hours visitors.
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