Located in western Nebraska, approximately 370 miles northwest of Omaha, the Cheyenne Outbreak was a crucial event in the state's history that took place on July 6, 1874, at Fort Laramie, around 60 miles north of present-day Scotts Bluff National Monument. This incident is often mentioned alongside other historical occurrences like the Wounded Knee Massacre, reflecting the fragile relationship between the Native American tribes and the United States during the late 19th century.

On July 6, 1874, tensions began escalating after a disagreement arose between Lakota Sioux warriors and a group of Cheyenne Native Americans who had accepted a proposition to conduct a raid near the Texas-Oklahoma border under the command of the revered Cheyenne Chief Medicine Water. Four Arapaho warriors that were part of the tribe were reprimanded after they denied participation in the anticipated raid. Failing to accept the decision of disallowance, the four refused the instructions, and Chief Medicine Water consequently shot and killed them.

Although the Native American Cheyenne are often depicted as displaying brutal acts, they would normally choose to resolve their disputes through internal trials, preferring to avoid intense aggressive conflicts. News of the altercation rapidly spread to white settlers positioned near various strategic government outposts, prompting immediate and drastic U.S. military retaliation efforts under the command of officer Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, which ultimately led to the mass relocation of numerous Native American tribes from their ancestral homeland to U.S. assigned reservations.

This migration process dispossessed the Native American tribes of their traditional lifestyle along the Great Plains. A common site that shows the existence of massive indigenous buffalo herds from before the Cheyenne Outbreak event is situated near Crow Butte, about 25 miles southwest of present-day McGrew in western Nebraska. Further exacerbating the outcome of the event was that while attempting to establish cooperation with Northern Cheyenne Chiefs, U.S. Soldiers repeatedly exhibited merciless behavior and hostility towards the Native American people.

Some historical figures made famous for assisting in forced migrations for indigenous communities were the well-known U.S. Calvary officer Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and the U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant. Both Custer and Grant directed such events aggressively, to rapidly transform Nebraska into a rapidly growing agricultural economy, at the cost of its indigenous people and wildlife population.

Archaeological sites at Crow Butte and the Upper Niobrara river showed vivid residues of Native American Chiefs as well to account that this tragic incident and conflict still remind historians of the brutality shown towards the massive genocide that took place during the massive expansion of newly civilizing societies.

Though Fort Laramie, the site of the major Cheyenne Outbreak witnessed an array of post-outbreak expansion under U.S. jurisdiction for which the event turned out to a harsh reminder.

Archaeologists near Crow Butte claimed its high feasibility of such post incidents; including migration processes prompted that wildlife and the North American Ecologies were deeply interwoven; meaning the outcome and drastic effect the event possessed, impacted greatly the region. Following this rapid decline of ancestral Native American lifestyle the Great Plains received mass construction to change its primary purpose, including new communities construction following the historical timeline closely resembling rapid population escalation.