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Essie Davis was part of a new trend – a more scientific approach to ranching. Range management is the handling of grasslands where cattle graze in order to maintain and increase both plant and animal production. Proper range management is crucial to successful ranching, and so, it is not surprising that Nebraska is where it was born.
The story of range management began in the late 1800s at the University of Nebraska. Charles Edwin Bessey was a botanist (an expert in ... Read more
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The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed the lives of all Nebraskans. They became united in a common goal of achieving total victory, no matter what the sacrifice. Most Nebraskans did not serve in the armed forces. As civilians, however, they faced many challenges on the home front, and they did their part to help win the war. The Uncle Sam recruiting poster and the events at Pearl Harbor helped motivate a great number of young men to enlist and ... Read more
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To build a sod house, you needed the right kind of grass — grass that had densely packed roots that would hold the soil together. So, Nebraska settlers would search for fields of buffalo grass, little blue stem, wire grass, prairie cord grass, Indian grass, and wheat grass.
The next task was to cut the sod into bricks. Originally, this was a difficult job done with a spade, one brick at a time. But in the mid-1880s, a new kind of ... Read more
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Another influential figure during the efforts to secure federal approval and funds for the project was U.S. Senator George W. Norris of McCook, Nebraska. Senator Norris played a pivotal role in guiding the project through the federal government’s bureaucratic maze. Senator Norris personally intervened on behalf of the Tri-County Project on several occasions. His efforts to convince Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes and President Franklin Roosevelt, with whom he had a good working relationship, that the project was ... Read more
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An auction in a rural community is a complex social, economic and even political event. It is also an emotional event. A farm auction usually means that the farmer is leaving — either by choice or because he or she can no longer make it financially. Neighbors gather to look through and bid on household items and equipment. In one moment, they’re looking for bargains. In another moment, they’re celebrating the life of their neighbor. They catch up on community ... Read more
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The Pawnee was one of the earliest Native American tribes to be described in the European historical record, and they were one of the largest groups to live and roam across the territory. Their name most likely comes from a Pawnee word for horn which was “Pariki” or “Parrico” and was in reference to the way they fashioned their hair to look to have a horn or horns. The French explorers recorded the term as “Pani” as eastern native groups ... Read more
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Initially, most Nebraska politicians were cautious about voicing their opinions of Sen. McCarthy. However, in 1952, former Nebraska Governor Dwight Griswold said it was a "thrilling experience" to hear McCarthy speak in Chicago. He was particularly impressed when Senator McCarthy said,
"There is no such thing as being a little disloyal." McCarthy’s ideas, if not his attacking style, hit a nerve, and legislative bodies tried to respond to the perceived threat.
The Nebraska Unicameral was one of the bodies that tried to ... Read more
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A black man by the name of York accompanied the Lewis and Clark expedition as a slave to Clark. He had been a childhood companion to William Clark and made invaluable contributions to the expedition on many occasions. Clark reported that York was especially attentive to Sergeant Floyd during his final days. York also risked his life to save Clark in a flash flood on the Missouri River near Great Falls in present-day Montana.
York participated in the hunts to bring ... Read more
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Before Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the "New World," Native Americans living in Nebraska lived in villages made up of small numbers of earth lodges, usually square in shape. Large wooden posts were placed upright in the ground and supported a framework of smaller logs. Then this was covered with grass and earth which provided shelter from the weather.
Nebraska Indian tribes, such as the Pawnee, Oto, Ponca, and Omaha, also lived in earth lodges that were round in shape and made ... Read more
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John Dunbar and Samuel Allis were perhaps the most adventurous of the early missionaries to Nebraska. They accompanied Indian Agent John Dougherty to his Indian agency at Bellevue in 1834. Dougherty distributed annuity goods to the Pawnees as prescribed by the Treaty of 1833. He explained to the chiefs of the four bands of Pawnee the reasons for the presence of Dunbar and Allis. The Pawnee immediately invited the two men to travel with them on the coming winter buffalo ... Read more
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In the east, there was history of Indian wars. Because of this, some white Americans new to the Louisiana Purchase area thought they needed protection from Native Americans. There were only some minor conflicts, but people still worried.
So in 1820, Fort Atkinson became the westernmost U.S. military post. The fort provided the only government authority in the huge territory west of the Missouri. It was built on the same Missouri River bluff where Lewis and Clark held their Council with ... Read more
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One of the first acts of the new Nebraska territorial legislature in 1855 was to provide for free public schools across the state, but life for children during the settlement period was probably centered less on school than it is now. The “Free Public School Act of 1855” created a territorial superintendent and provided for county school superintendents to be elected by popular vote. Each county superintendent was to organize school districts and levy a property tax to support the ... Read more
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Concerns about nuclear war also had an effect on government. There was a rush in the 1950s and 60s to provide shelters for governmental agencies and bodies.
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Human beings weren’t the only species selected to survive a nuclear attack in Nebraska. In 1963, Roberts Dairy Company, outside of Omaha, conducted a two-week survival test for 35 cows, one bull, and two student cowhands. They built a concrete shelter under the dairy at Elkhorn that was big enough to house over 200 Golden Guernsey cows and a couple of bulls. Milk is especially susceptible to contamination by radioactive elements, and so Roberts and the Office of Civil Defense ... Read more
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The construction of a $45 million ammunition depot (the largest in the nation) brought both growth and stress to Hastings, Nebraska. The development helped the Hastings community recover from the Depression. However, it also brought a flood of immigrants and created new social pressures. At its peak, the depot employed approximately 2,000 military personnel and 6,692 civilian production workers. There were also 2,000 civilians still involved in construction of the plant. All together, there were over 10,000 workers.
You can see ... Read more
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Twelve million years ago, what became Ashfall was a watering hole in the middle of a savanna — a flat, warm and humid grassland much like some areas of Africa today. The animals would gather here to drink. Hunters would prey on smaller species, sick or young animals. More than 40 species of plants and animals were common visitors or residents.
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Across the country, Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin had become the most vocal hunter of communists within the U.S. government. He was an ambitious politician who seized on the growing fear of communism as his political crusade.
In February, 1950, McCarthy was slated to speak before the Republican Women’s Club in Wheeling, West Virginia. During the weeks before, China had fallen to the communists and Russia had tested an atomic bomb. Two years before, an official in the State Department, ... Read more
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In the very first issue of Nebraska Farmer, published in January 1877, there were two articles on the importance of breeding. One, entitled "Galloway Cattle", praised the breed for its size, endurance, and traits, making it well suited ... Read more
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Under the reservation system, American Indians kept their citizenship in their independent tribes, but life was harder than it had been. The reservations were designed to encourage the Indians to live within clearly defined zones. The U.S. promised to provide food, goods and money and to protect them from attack by other tribes and white settlers. Also, some educators and protestant missionaries felt that forcing the Indians to live in a confined space would make it easier to "civilize the ... Read more
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When homesteaders arrived on the Great Plains, they found a challenging environment where survival was the goal. The native tribal people had been meeting these same challenges for thousands of years and had evolved complex economic, agricultural and cultural methods of coping. What was life like for the Native Americans in the mid- to late-1800s on the Great Plains?
By the mid-1800s, the Pawnee, Omaha, Oto-Missouria, Ponca, Lakota (Sioux), and Cheyenne were the main plains tribes living in the Nebraska Territory. ... Read more
