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In the 1930s, the United States was suffering through the Great Depression. In Nebraska and surrounding states, the effects of the economic depression were made worse by sustained drought. Farmers were being driven from their land by crop failures that were common in the “Dust Bowl” that spread across the Great Plains.
Nebraska had a history of drought. Most of Nebraska was once called the “Great American Desert”. Its scorching summers, harsh ... Read more
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Verdigre is a small, close-knit Nebraska community of around 600 people near to the South Dakota border. In September, 1984, the Bank of Verdigre closed and its assets and outstanding loans were seized by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC. The FDIC, of course, was set up in the 30s to protect the depositors in a bank, and so when a bank has bad loans, the FDIC tries to recoup as much ... Read more
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You may think names such as Quality Pig, Inc., Profit Pig, Inc., Pork Chop, Inc., and Oink, Inc. are names given to corporate hog factories by their critics. But, the names were no laughing matter to Nebraska’s pork industry, which ibecame increasingly dominated by large-scale confinement hog factories in the latter part of the twentieth century.
Good hog prices, lucrative tax breaks, and in some cases, government financing brought a flurry of non-farmer investments in Nebraska hog confinement facilities prior to ... Read more
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The Posse Comitatus was a right-wing extremist group that contended that the true intent of the country’s founders was to establish a Christian republic where the individual was sovereign, and that the Republic’s first duty was to promote, safeguard, and protect the Christian faith. They saw farmers as the victims of a Jewish-led, communist-supported conspiracy that had infiltrated the government. They thought the conspiracy would rob the farmer of his land through manipulation of ... Read more
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Did farm homes in Nebraska need fallout shelters, even if they were located far away from the supposed targets of nuclear bombs?
"Shelters make good sense," declared Mrs. Lorraine Still, Custer County home agent, "even though farm families may live hundreds of miles from military targets or large population centers." In ... Read more
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In the later years of the nineteenth century, the number of homesteaders who mostly were farmers (also called "grangers") grew. This put pressure on the ranchers who were using large areas of public lands to graze their cattle. Not only were homesteaders taking the land, but they were taking the land with access to water, which the ranchers’ cattle needed.
This conflict between homesteaders and cattlemen was rooted deeply in two very different traditions of land use. The ranchers were mostly ... Read more
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In the late 1980s, the Cold War came to a dramatic end. The economies of nations behind the Iron Curtain were in trouble. People in East Germany, for instance, could see the prosperity and wealth of their West German neighbors. In Russia, there were long lines of people waiting to buy food. ... Read more
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In the first Nebraska territorial census of 1854, there were only four slaves listed. In 1855, Sally Bayne arrived in Omaha and is counted as the first free African American to settle in the Nebraska Territory. Before that, both slaves and free blacks had traveled through on the Oregon Trail and settled on the west coast. Gradually, along with ... Read more
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The year after the first strike, the American Agriculture Movement decided to take their demands and their tractors to Washington DC. They were demanding a revision of the 1977 Farm Bill. They argued that the bill encouraged large scale production, but did not guarantee of high enough prices to keep small farms in business. The AAM emphasized rallies and protests against the political system.
A protest rally in the nation’s capital was planned for January, 1978, which would bring a nationwide ... Read more
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As World War II ended, a new age began — the Atomic Age. The first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, ended World War II and created a new, more nervous age. Very quickly, the Soviet Union also developed atomic bombs. Countries that had been allies against the Nazis were now enemies, each pledged to outdo the other in the battle for ... Read more
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The Homestead Act of 1862 was a piece of inspired legislation. It allowed anyone who was over 21 or the head of a household to own land. The Homestead Act became a symbol of newfound freedom for many African Americans. The day that the Homestead Act went into effect — January 1, 1863 — was the same day that President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Many Black Americans began looking to the west as a place where ... Read more
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The Oto and Missouria have left impressive archaeological sites, including the Oto-Missouria village near Yutan.
The Otos immigrated into eastern Nebraska about 1700, building the Yutan village about 1775; remnants of the Missourias joined them in the 1790s.The village was occupied until 1837. It was the first major Indian settlement seen by fur traders on the journey up the Platte to western bison-hunting and beaver-trapping ranges. Spanish correspondence from 1777 noted the presence of this site that was named after the ... Read more
