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With the path wide open for cattle’s entry into Nebraska, three new markets for beef increased demand beyond the needs created by the Civil War.
In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer of the U.S. Cavalry emerged from an expedition into the Black Hills and announced that he had found gold there. Prospectors flooded into the area.
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In the early 1980s, there were several radical farm groups that had organized to prevent the loss of farms. The groups had different prescriptions for how to solve the problems of agriculture, but they shared a belief that farmers weren’t to blame for their problems. Instead, these groups blamed a conspiracy of powerful national and international groups — like Jews or Masons — who were trying to take over the food system.
Arthur Kirk denied that he was a member of ... Read more
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Because there were so many cattle in Texas and so few people, the cattle were worthless. But those same cattle were worth a lot in the north, where Americans’ taste for beef had grown. The four-dollar steer in Texas was worth 30 to 40 dollars in the north. The problem was getting the worthless cattle to the place where they had value.
The creation of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads solved that problem. Texans could drive their cattle north ... Read more
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Because of the Civil War, two things happened that created the American beef industry:
The Union had a huge army that needed food. To meet this demand, innovative butchers in Chicago with names like Gustavus Swift and P. D. Armour acquired large buildings, hired every butcher they could find, and bought every head of livestock ... Read more
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The idea of women in uniform was new during World War II. Approximately 1,800 Nebraska women joined the special military organizations created for women.
A multitude of female military units were created, each with acronyms that were remarkably similar:
The American Women’s Voluntary Services (AWVS) was also ... Read more
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The rationed item that produced the greatest inconvenience was probably gasoline. Each motorist was assigned a windshield sticker with the appropriate letter of priority ranging from "A" to "C". Trucks received a special "T" sticker. Most of the population received low priority "A" stickers, allowing only three to five gallons of gasoline a week.
Gasoline was rationed in an effort to save gas and tires, because supplies of vital rubber from the Far East had been cut off. Along with gasoline ... Read more
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The 1950s and early 60s was a time of political change, and the political debate was dominated by one central fact — the communists had changed from allies during WWII to sworn enemies during the Cold War. People were afraid that communists, or "reds," would take over America and the world, especially since they also had atomic weapons. For many, the Korean War was proof that communist regimes would try to ... Read more
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Despite the surprising victory in the Nebraska legislature, anti-suffrage forces did not give up. They decided to use a weapon they had previously opposed — the initiative and referendum petition drive — to overturn the action of the legislature and governor.
Progressives had added the initiative and referendum amendments to the Nebraska constitution in 1912. Just two years later, suffragists had used the initiative petition to place the woman suffrage amendment on the ballot for the general election. (The ... Read more
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What was it like to fly a bomber with atomic weapons on board? What was it like to know your mission was to kill thousands and even hundreds of thousands of civilians?
Much is demanded of the SAC atom-bomber crews. Their lives are something new in military history. For the first time in peacetime, SAC bomber crews were prepared to fly their missions at a moment’s notice. SAC commanders had to be constantly available; before the era of cell phones, they ... Read more
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Although there certainly were Nebraska ranchers who played fast and loose with the law, there were others who did not. Essie Buchanan Davis was one of the "good guys".
She had not set out to be one of the most successful women ranchers in the history of Nebraska; she had not even set out to be a rancher at all.
Essie Buchanan was a hatmaker or milliner by trade and owned a hat shop in Ogallala. But she did travel with her ... Read more
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After World War II, South Omaha’s stockyards and packing houses were caught up in a postwar hunger for beef. In 1949, the ... Read more
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One day after the Kansas troop train misunderstanding, a young, 26-year-old woman, Rae Wilson, wrote to the North Platte Bulletin (now North Platte Telegraph) and suggested running a canteen for soldiers traveling through North Platte.
"During World War I the army and navy mothers, or should I say the war mothers, had canteens at our own depot. Why can’t we? . . . I say get back of our sons and other mothers’ sons 100%. Let’s do something and do ... Read more
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Technology and innovation dramatically changed beef in the first quarter of the 20th century. Improvements to railroad cars ended the days of shipping live cattle. Initially, railroads had been resistant to change because of their large investments in a system of corrals where they could feed and water cattle in transit to the Omaha or Wyoming stockyards.
But live cattle took up a lot of space in a rail car, lost weight in transit, and occasionally injured each other. Moreover, when ... Read more
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During the Cold War, military planners assumed that the Soviet Union might start a nuclear war at any time. Initially, the attack would have come from bombers flying over the North Pole, which is the shortest route between Russia and the U.S. SAC built a string of radar stations across Alaska, Canada and Scotland to provide about one hour of warning. Then ICBMs — Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles that could fly from continent to continent in minutes — were developed, and ... Read more
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Find out where these Protohistoric cultures are.
Around 1600 CE, the first of the Protohistoric tribal cultures to return to the Nebraska region may have been the ancestors of the Pawnee. Several archaeological sites around the present day Lower Loup River in east-central Nebraska have been found, and these sites have named for that river basin.
Precise dates are difficult, but one interpretation of Pawnee stories or oral history says that they immigrated into Nebraska from the south about 1600. Archaeologists also ... Read more
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Religious freedom is a right guaranteed to Americans by the United States Constitution. However, some groups in history have been denied this right. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints (Mormons) were one of these groups. Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers were forced to leave Nauvoo, Illinois. Young led the first migration of Mormons up the Platte River Valley in 1847 to what is now the state of Utah. They followed the Platte River on the ... Read more
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By the summer of 1943, when German prisoners of war began to arrive in Nebraska, the agricultural work force in the state was severely depleted. Farmers needed workers. ... Read more
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The production of beef is one agricultural business that became very "industrialized." It is industrial in the sense that the different steps in the production process have become very specialized with standardized products at each step.
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On November 11, 1918, World War I ended and America emerged victorious. But as thousands of soldiers returned from Europe ready to forget the terrible carnage they had seen, they arrived in a country with serious social and political problems that the war had simply swept under the surface.
There have always been racial divides in America. People tend to identify themselves as members of one group or another. Tensions ... Read more
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The first of the politically active farmers’ groups was the Grange, or the "Patrons of Husbandry" as they were formally known. The Grange was organized in Nebraska in 1872 with 50 local chapters springing up during that year. Two years later they boasted 20,000 members. The group tended to be stalwart champions of the yeoman farmer. It was said that a Grange member could go to a statewide convention in the big city with a $10 bill in his pocket ... Read more
