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In the early 1800s, the economic reality of what would become Nebraska was based on trade between the Europeans and Indians for furs and skins. Trading companies gambled fortunes in this high-risk enterprise, but the day-to-day business of the fur trade was done in Indian camps or at far-flung posts.
The fur trade was an international business ... Read more
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After Arthur Kirk was killed by a Nebraska State Patrol SWAT team, some charged that the killing was not justified and that Kirk was allowed to bleed to death while the Hall County Sheriff was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. The legislature and Governor Bob Kerrey appointed former Lincoln judge Samuel Van Pelt as a special investigator to review the case and the charges.
His report was released in December, 1984. Van Pelt said that the death of Kirk ... Read more
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By 9,000 years ago, the last Ice Age had ended and the climatic patterns somewhat characteristic of the modern period were established. Many of the animals that had dominated the Plains during the Ice Age became extinct. Mammoths, camels, horses, and others all died out. People changed the way they lived in response to shifts in climate and available plants and animals. More diverse hunting was practiced, with both large and small game species killed. Wild plant resources were also ... Read more
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The resentment that many farmers felt against bankers reached the boiling point during the height of the farm crisis in the 1980s. Some bankers said they got the silent treatment on the street. A few were even assaulted by angry customers. Some farmers wore black armbands to protest foreclosures. Bankers became the target of bitter jokes making the rounds in Nebraska communities.
Question: What’s the difference between a dead skunk on the road and a dead loan officer?
Answer: There are skid ... Read more
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Lewis and Clark’s expedition was followed by an expedition led by Zebulon M. Pike in 1806. This expedition was General James Wilkinson’s idea. Wilkinson was a newly appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory. He sent Pike on an expedition towards Spanish territory, possibly to provoke a war or to spy.
The Spanish in the New Mexico territory became very frightened about American plans when Jefferson sent out the Lewis and Clark expedition because Spain still claimed parts of the Louisiana Territory.
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In 1844, pressure for more protection for additional whites was growing. The U.S. Secretary of War recommended that a chain of posts be built from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains to protect the Oregon migration. Col. Stephen Watts Kearny was ordered to construct a new fort and he chose a site on Table Creek, now Nebraska City. It would be named Fort Kearny.
The location of the fort in 1846 at Table Creek was a bad decision. The Table ... Read more
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When settlers first moved onto the land, they needed shelter immediately. For a few days, they may have stayed in their wagons or a tent. But many soon built a temporary, one-room building called a cabin. A cabin is simply a quickly built one-room dwelling that can be made of any material, including logs, lumber, stone, or sod.
If you had a hill on your claim, you might construct a dugout. By digging into the hill, you immediately had a back ... Read more
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Who was "Bright Eyes"? What was her role during the Standing Bear vs. Crook Trial?
Susette was born in Bellevue in 1854, the year the Omaha gave up their Nebraska hunting grounds and agreed to move to a northeastern Nebraska reservation. She was the oldest daughter of Joseph La Flesche, the last recognized chief of the Omaha. Joseph was known as "Iron Eyes." Susette was raised on the Omaha Reservation and from 1862 to 1869 attended the Presbyterian Mission Boarding Day ... Read more
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The new Internet economy ran over telecommunication lines that reached all the way around the world. Most of those lines were made of fiber-optic cables — glass fibers that carry light waves that transmit digital signals. One of the largest owners of these fiber-optic networks was a Nebraska-born company — Level 3.
By the end of the 20th century, Level 3 Communications Inc. operated a 16,000-mile network of fiber-optic cable that connected more than ... Read more
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There are inherent conflicts in the stories of the missionaries and the tribes they were trying convert. On the one hand, the missionaries generally had good intentions, and they reflected the philosophies of the country’s leaders. On the other hand, the Native Americans generally didn’t feel that they needed to be saved. The experiences of Dunbar and Allis are a good example of this conflict.
One of the fathers of the country, Thomas Jefferson wrote at length about the problems involved ... Read more
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The archaeological record in western and central Nebraska suggests that Native American people migrated to the region somewhere around 1675 CE. We think they came from further west and north. Archaeologists have found evidence of these people and named the culture after where the sites were discovered in the 1930s — along the Dismal River in the Nebraska sand hills. Dismal River Cultural sites also have been excavated in the Republican River basin. So, the Dismal River cultural complex occupied ... Read more
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William Jennings Bryan was a prominent force throughout his political life from the 1890s to the 1920s. During his early career, he had supported a variety of progressive measures, but prohibition was not at the top of his agenda. In his private life, he did not drink alcohol, had taken a temperance pledge as a child, and felt prohibition would contribute to the moral improvement of the individual and to civic progress. He stressed temperance and opposed the ... Read more
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As more and more nuclear weapons were being built, put into planes and on top of rockets, there were individuals who thought that the doctrine of deterrence through MAD — Mutually Assured Destruction — was just that, mad. They felt that it was better to negotiate to resolve differences with communist governments rather ... 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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In the 1980s, celebrities — particularly those with rural backgrounds — were concerned with the crisis on the farm. Farm Aid was one response.
Willie Nelson is from the plains of Texas. In 1985, he wanted to heighten public awareness of the plight of the family farmer and raise money for farm support groups. So he, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp organized a benefit concert at the University of Illinois. A wide variety of performers appeared on that first Farm Aid ... Read more
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While Crook watched over the Ponca at Fort Omaha, Tibbles worked feverishly to tell Standing Bear’s story and enlist support for the Ponca cause. He telegraphed the story of Crook’s interview with Standing Bear to eastern newspapers and wrote a very passionate editorial for the Omaha Herald on April 1, 1879. Tibbles enlisted the support of the ministers of the leading churches in Omaha and sent a telegram to Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior, pleading with him to reverse ... Read more
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The federal government’s decision in 1948 to locate the Strategic Air Command (SAC) near Omaha was a key reason that Omaha became a state of the art communications center.
SAC (now U.S. Strategic Command) had a mission to lead U.S. military operations in the event of a nuclear war. They needed the most advanced communications system possible. As a result, the local telephone company installed an incredibly large and complex telecommunications infrastructure, staffed with people who knew how to run it. ...
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The oldest known Indian tool found in Nebraska is the Clovis point, made about 10,000 B.C.E. It is a spear point with a groove or flute, at its base. Attached to a shaft, this spear point was capable of penetrating an elephant’s hide. The Clovis culture takes its name from the town in New Mexico where the striking stone projectile point characteristic of this culture was first found. The chipped flint points known as Clovis points and a variety of ... Read more
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Patricia Jane LeMay Lodge (known as ‘Janie’) was the only daughter of Curtis and Helen (Maitland) LeMay. She was around nine-years-old when her family moved to Offutt. In 1998, she talked with historian Barbara W. Sommer about those years, her father’s career and her own upbringing.
For Jane, the Offutt years were good ones because the family was together.
"My grandparents lived on a wonderful street with very old homes. My mother had been born in the house that they lived in. ... Read more
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The David City Bank failed in 1984. It was the 55th commercial bank in the United States to fail that year. In this case, the Nebraska State Banking Director declared that the bank was no longer solvent. The bank’s assets were turned over to the FDIC, which began to liquidate the assets of the loans.
Farmers in the surrounding area were facing a new crisis with the failure. Borrowers were sure that there would be foreclosures, and that farmers would be ... Read more
