Published December 10, 2025 | Updated August 15, 2026

Levi Everett claimed to be “the last bona fide hermit living in a cave in the United States.” During his youth, Levi worked as a “powder monkey” and was said to be the only person foolish enough to haul a wagonload of nitroglycerin over the rutted roads to the rock quarries in Cass County where he was tasked with lighting the dynamite.

Born in 1862, Levi became known as “Dynamite Pete.” After abandoning that line of work, he moved away from the family home in Plattsmouth and took up life as a hermit, living in shacks and caves along Pawnee Creek near South Bend, Nebraska. He lived in the woods, where he fed animals, tended a garden to raise his own food, cured tobacco, and sang and played music on his prized possession, a 200-year-old Jacob Stainer violin his family had brought with them when they emigrated from Germany. Pete claimed to know more than 200 songs.

Pete did occasionally return from the wild. In 1890, he lived in South Bend with his mother, Harriett, for a time. She was divorced, and it’s reasonable Pete reunited with her from time-to-time. She passed away in 1902. He also spent seven months in the hospital after being sideswiped by a train in 1914 as he walked along the tracks.

With a beard and long hair that he cut only every 15 years or so, Pete often wore overalls, was not fond of shirts, and refused to wear shoes. The exploits of Dynamite Pete are well known. Pete once won a bet by walking on his hands through town, a bottle of whiskey clenched between his teeth. While talking to railroaders, he once lit a stick of dynamite and asked if they were man enough to have a drink with him. When they fled, he put out the fuse with his fingers and helped himself to their beers. He once invited a group of curious children into his cave for a home-cooked meal which was chili in a tin can heated over a fire. Only afterward did he realize he’d forgotten the “secret ingredient,” which he corrected by taking the wad of chewing tobacco out of his mouth and mixing it into the food. He was also known to participate in local talent shows, where he played his favorite tune, “Turkey in the Straw,” on his violin.

Despite his solitary lifestyle, Pete was no stranger to the city or to publicity. While in Omaha in 1933, he formed a sort of fraternity with other hermits, including Henry Morris of the Platte River and Clark Watson of the Elkhorn River. To become a member of “Hermits Ltd.,” you had to have been a hermit for 35 years and vow to remain one until you died. While Pete couldn’t keep his word, he did outlive the others.

In 1936, he spent 10 days in the hospital after being hit by a car. After his release, he sponsored a hermit club for youths that included his nephew, Ernest. The children became interested after hearing him play music and learning about his life in the wild. Pete was given the honor of turning the first shovel of dirt for the club’s cave, located near Ernest’s home at 4116 Grant Street. Pete, of course, returned to his familiar surroundings before coming back to Omaha two years later to play music for Bobby Jeanne, a girl who was shot out of a cannon at Aksarben Field.

After another hospital stay, the lifelong bachelor sought a companion who could tend his crops and look after him as he healed. That led him once again to Omaha, where he took part in a campaign designed to find him a wife. In a letter reprinted by the Omaha World-Herald, the 80-year-old man, living off pension checks, wrote: “I am full of fun. Like my beer. I never quarl. If I had a wife she could do as she please and all, outside of men friends.” A 41-year-old widow living in a shelter expressed interest, but the marriage was denied by the health department on the grounds that Pete’s residence in a cave was not acceptable.

The event attracted the attention of a New York City-based human-interest radio broadcast called We, the People. Pete dressed for the occasion in a suit and, although he shed the jacket and tie, he did keep the socks and shoes on. He recounted that he wanted to speak off the cuff but instead he was handed a script. Even so, he said his life as a hermit had been a good one, and that if he had to do it again, he would. He claimed he was happier than any rich man and that, while he didn’t eat much, he was better for it. He said that he enjoyed a lifestyle that allowed him to live as he pleased without paying a mortgage, rent, or taxes.

Pete’s fortunes took a turn for the worse after the show. When his cave flooded in 1944, he returned to Omaha and stayed with his nephew for a time. Though he planned to resume his hermit life after it dried out, he soon came down with pneumonia. Pete spent his final five years at the Hillcrest nursing home in Plattsmouth. He never got the chance to return to the 6-by-9-foot shack that stood at the entrance of his cave. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in 1949.

The shack at the entrance to his cave no longer stands. Most likely his violin is gone. But despite that, Dynamite Pete lives on in Louisville where they throw a party each summer to remember a hermit that was larger than life.

“Dynamite Pete Days” is hosted by the Louisville Area Foundation. Funds raised during the festival are used to improve the community and its organizations. Click here to learn more: Dynamite Pete Days – It’s going to be a blast — Louisville Area Foundation

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• Omaha World-Herald archives
• https://www.louisvilleareafoundation.org/who-is-dynamite-pete
• https://omaha.com/lifestyles/the-story-of-dynamite-pete-hermit-who-lived-near-platte-river-was-one-of-the/article_8b4a2d96-8755-11e7-9416-7b944c411cf9.html
• https://www.omaha.com/dynamite-pete-gets-offer-accepts-proposal-by-mail/pdf_abce7254-8758-11e7-872c-43de2d449312.html
• https://www.louisvilleareafoundation.org/dynamite-pete-days
• https://www.kimberlycreekretreat.com/history
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/227018790/levi-everett