Prairie Pathways: Modern travelers move faster than ever, but they often follow prairie pathways that people have used for thousands of years. Paul Henderson discovered an 1832 half-dime on the Sidney-Deadwood Trail at age eight. His discovery sparked a lifelong interest in the Oregon Trail. Paul and his wife, Helen, made it their life's work to find and document the rutted wagon roads that led settlers toward the setting sun. Their years of detective work revealed a handful of the myriad stories of High Plains travelers who have passed by here. The Oregon Trail is just one path among many, a single strand in a braid of lives woven across millennia.
The first local business ventures were remote, rough-hewn trading posts on the Oregon Trail. Early in the 1900s, only a few decades after the wagon trails rolled through, the Panhandle region became one of the fastest-growing in the nation as jobseekers arrived to work in farming, food-processing and construction of irrigation projects. Today, the region's farmers and manufacturers ship their products across the nation and around the world.
Dwellings & Domestic Life ~~ Our homes reflect who we are and the land in which we live. The "soddies" of early prairie settlers were symbolic of a treeless land and an agricultural economy, while the tepees of the region's Indian tribes reflected their nomadic lifestyle of bison hunting. Looking back, we see that the social roles of men and women have changed dramatically as the way we build our homes and get the household chores done.
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| 100th Meridian |
When the tracks of the Union Pacific reached the 100th Meridian in 1866, it was a major media event.
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| 1929 John Deere |
Dwellings and domestic life ~~ People from around the globe settled in western Nebraska. Their cultures of origin are reflected in the variety of dwellings they built, which in turn reflect the character and resources of the High Plains. Making a home on the frontier was far from easy, and survival required every family member to contribute. Hard work was a way of life.
The Great Western Sugar Company built six factories in the region between 1910 and 1920.
Long before the North Platte Valley became an agricultural mecca, it was the pipeline for the West's first major industry: the fur trade. The region's trade connections still reach across the nation and overseas.
Merchants and manufacturers settled beside the homesteaders who began arriving in the 1880s. Town and country grew up together, with both farms and factories contributing to local prosperity.
Downtown businesses thrived as hubs for shopping and socializing.
Early settlers got big results from small irrigation projects. By the early 1900s they had irrigated nearly 100,000 acres in Scotts Bluff County alone. The Bureau of Reclamation amplified local efforts with the North Platte Project, a system of dams, reservoirs, canals and ditches that delivers water from mountain snowmelt to the farms of the High Plains. When irrigation came to the North Platte Valley in the early 1900s, prosperity followed. The population swelled as jobseekers found work in local fields and factories.
Dry soils and low rainfall dashed the hopes of many pioneer farmers in this region. To survive, they had to experiment, innovate and adapt. Dryland farming emerged in the 1890s. It uses special techniques, some of them developed here, to conserve moisture. Dryland farming has never been easy, but with discipline, determination and luck, it can produce good yields. The farmers of this region have shown the nation and the world how to do it right.
Wheat is the primary dryland crop land grown in the region. Other important crops include barley, oats and corn.
The "Payne Special" brought potential investors here in 1909. The arrival of the railroad was an economic boon to towns along the track.
Paul and Helen Henderson mapped the Oregon Trail, one of the historic Great Plains travel routes that passed through here.
Today's travel routes retrace ancient footpaths that date back thousands of years. Until about 400 years ago, all traffic passed through the North Platte Valley on foot. Native Americans were drawn by water, good hunting and timber. They followed roads that weren't marked on any map but that persisted for thousands of years -- west to the mountains and east to the grasslands; north to the snows and south to the desert.
Fur traders made the North Platte Valley a road to opportunity. They connected the West's natural wealth with markets in the eastern U.S. and Europe. About 1810, trappers and traders began traveling the river, hauling trade goods upstream and floating pelts back down. They mapped the region, and built settlements that included Fort Laramie and Robidoux's trading post. A generation before the first wagon train traveled the Oregon Trail, fur traders made the North Platte River Valley into America's main road west.
The fur industry brought the West into an international trade network. North American furs met Europe's extraordinary demand for beaver hats, which were widely popular in the first half of the 19th century. The North Platte Valley sat at the head of a global supply chain that stretched through St. Louis to New York and, ultimately, London and Paris.
French-Canadian trapper Jacques La Ramee ascended the North Platte in 1815, one of the first fur traders to take this route to the Rockies.
Fort Laramie was an important collection point in the pipeline. Trappers brought furs to the fort and sold them to traders, who shipped them downstream. This enterprise linked the West to the global economy, and most of those involved profited. Except, of course, the beaver.
Introduced in the 1500s, beaver hats became so popular that the animal disappeared from most of Europe. American furs extended the life of the industry for another century.
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| Super Snow Bird |
This 1929 Ford features the "Snow Bird" conversion kit made by the Farm Specialty Manufacturing Company of New Holstein, Wisconsin. Specially designed for the Model A, a souped-up version of the kit -- the "Super Snow Bird" -- was used on Richard E. Byrd's second Antarctic expedition.
When winter drifts got deep, some early motorists turned to special conversion kits. Marketed under the names such as "Snow Flyer" and "Eskimobile," these products served those who had to travel snow-packed roads from about 1910 through 1950. Doctors, mail carriers, utility crews found them indispensable during a High Plains winter.
The blizzard of January 1949 was one for the ages. An early winter storm that dumped two feet of snow and felled 2,000 telephone poles was merely a prelude to the deadly blizzard that began on the second day of the new year. Temperatures dived to -10 and winds topped 70 miles an hour, driving snow into mountainous drifts. People waited out the storm, but when the skies finally cleared, high winds kept the snow flying. It took several days to reopen main highways, and more than two weeks to dig out secondary routes. By then, many stranded rural families were burning furniture to stay warm.
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| Built by the Studebaker Company of South Bend, IN |
Studebakers and other emigrant wagons were engineered for strenuous duty. If you migrated west on the Oregon Trail, you might have carried your gear in a Studebaker wagon like this one. Wagons like the Studebaker were far more practical -- sturdy enough to haul a ton of cargo, yet sufficiently nimble to maneuver through rugged terrain. Studebakers logged millions of miles hauling emigrants to California and Oregon.
Contrary to folklore, few emigrants used Conestoga wagons, nicknamed "prairie schooners." They were expensive and too big to handle well in the mountains. Conestogas were intended for hauling large freight shipments, not the possessions of a single family.
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| Old Man of the Trail |
Ezra Meeker's epic 1906 wagon trek helped save the Oregon Trail from oblivion. He was 75 years old, and 54 years removed from his original journey west with his wife and infant son. He'd already lived a full life as a farmer, merchant, miner and politician, making and losing two fortunes along the way. Ever the enterprising pioneer, Meeker decided in 1906 to re-ride the Oregon Trail from east to west in an ox-drawn wagon, placing stone monuments at key points on the route.
As he'd hoped, Meeker's journey inspired others to preserve the trail before it disappeared. Civic organizations began putting up trail markers, and several states (including Nebraska) appropriated funds for the same purpose. Meeker kept promoting the trail well into his 90s. Since he was too old for a real covered wagon, he toured in a Conestoga-shaped automobile.
The Last Pioneers ~~ The surveying crew that mapped Nebraska faced many of the same challengers as westbound pioneers. When the official Territorial Survey began in 1854, most of Nebraska was still a remote, wild frontier. The surveyors started at a point on the Missouri River's west bank that straddled the Kansas-Nebraska border. Working north and west, it took them several decades to complete their task.
The survey parties needed more than technical skills. They had to deal with hostile Indian tribes, unpredictable weather extremes, isolation and all the hardships of frontier life from disease to insects and bad water.
But, like the determined westbound emigrants in wagon trains, surveyors persisted. Year after year, they divided the empty territorial map into township, range and section. They staked the corners where one settler's land met that of their neighbors', and drew the lines that guided those who built railroads, highways and towns.
Few emigrant graves have drawn as many visitors as that of Rebecca Winters. She died of cholera in August 1852, leaving a husband and five children. A family friend stayed up all night to etch her name into a steel wagon rim. At sunup he pounded the homemade marker into the prairie and the family moved on, bound for Salt Lake City on the Mormon Trail.
A Burlington Northern survey crew found the marker in 1900. They rerouted the track by a few feet to avoid disturbing the grave. Thousands of visitors have come to pay their respects over the years, honoring not only Rebecca Winters but also the many others who died on the trails west.
In 1929 the Daughters of the American Revolution added a marker at Winters' grave. Dozens of Mormon church members attended the unveiling.
Rebecca Winters' original gravesite lay just six feet from the Burlington Northern tracks. In 1995, with the blessing of Winters' descendants, the railroad relocated her grave to a safer location nearby.
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| Rebecca Winters Grave |
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| Follow the white lines from left to right to see where they end up |
The telegraph operator used morse code as a means of communication. Morse code uses only two signals -- dots and dashes -- to transmit a message.
Makin Bacon ~~ Most early farm families raised pigs for meat and cash. Almost every part of a pig was used, and they were cheap to feed. Hog butchering day started early, and was often an affair that involved the entire family as well as some neighbors. A fire was built beneath a large tank or drum filled with water. The hog carcass was scalded in boiling water, making it easier to scrape off the bristles.
After scalding and scraping, the carcass was hung up. The animal was gutted, and the organs and intestines were saved for sausage-making. The meat was preserved by smoking or soaking in brine -- it would keep for months without refrigeration. The fat was used to make lard and soap.
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| Sheering a sheep |
Wool makes great yarn because its fibers have waves, called crimps, which allow the wool to be spun into lengths. A "staple" is a natural bundle of fibers. A "fleece" is formed from multiple staples. A "wool stapler" is a person who grades and sells wool.
The price of wool has gone up in wartime and down in peacetime. From Civil War uniforms to the fleece-lined bomber jackets, worn by WWII pilots, wool was the military's fiber of choice. Clothing made from synthetic fabrics has replaced many woolen garments in modern wardrobes though, and Americans are eating less lamb. The industry has declined -- the domestic sheep herd is one-tenth the size it was during WWII (1941-45).
Most of the sheep shipped to packing houses from western Nebraska were raised in other states. Nebraska feeders bought animals from ranges to the west and fattened them. Sheep needed only sheds for shelter, and they thrived on crop residue and small amounts of grain.
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| Corn King Manure Spreader c. 1905 |
The safe and efficient disposal of animal waste, especially when livestock are confined, has always been a challenge for livestock producers. Using manure to fertilize fields creates a win-win situation as waste is used to benefit the land. This manure spreader is ground-driven -- the rotation of the wheels is harnessed to move the manure toward the rear of the wagon bed, where spinning flails break it up and spread it on the soil.
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| Trigger gets enshrined on Hollywood's Walk of Fame |
Randall trained all 80 of the horses used in the iconic chariot race scene from 1959's "Ben Hur."
As of 1900 Nebraska had the nation's 27th largest population -- but its fifth largest horse population. Every major industry in the state relied on their work. Horses plowed the fields and hauled the harvest to the market or the mill. They helped round up the livestock. They brought coal to the furnace, milk to the kitchen, and news to the doorstep. Whether you worked in town, on the ranch, on the farm or at the factory, you probably couldn't do your job without horsepower.
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| The original food truck |
This chuckwagon replica is smaller -- and quite likely cleaner -- than the real thing. It's also missing an ornery but resourceful camp cook.
Trail drives from Texas populated the High Plains with cattle in the 1870s. One of the first routes, the Goodnight-Loving Trail, brought Texas herds through Cheyenne and Fort Laramie in the late 1860s. Another route, the Great Western, linked Texas to the transcontinental railroad at Ogallala in 1874. Herders often left the main trails and came into this area in search of grass and water.
Over time, the settlement of small farms pushed cattle drives westward into an ever-narrowing lane. By 1880, the main trail passed through Sidney. The cattle drive era ended a few years later -- but not before it had populated Nebraska rangelands with hundreds of thousands of cattle.
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| Sugar beets |
Nearly 90% of Nebraska's sugar beets are grown in the Panhandle Region, where conditions are near-perfect. Hot days and cool nights are just right for beet plants to maximize the sugar they store in their roots. The problems with leaf disease that plague beet farmers in more humid areas are far less troublesome in the Panhandle's arid climate, which also meets the plants' need for abundant sunshine. Although annual rainfall is only 14-16", water for irrigation has been available since the North Platte Project was built in the early 1900s.
The Great Western Sugar Company processed the first beets in its Scottsbluff factory in 1910. From 1905 to 1920, the acreage planted in sugar beets in the North Platte Valley soared from 300 to 80,000. Great Western built additional factories in Gering, Bayard, Mitchell, Minitare, and Lyman. The Holly Sugar Company opened a factory in Torrington, Wyoming in 1926.
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Many workers settled here, creating the ethnic diversity that characterizes Scottsbluff and Gering today.
Immigrants looking for work in the fields and factories of the North Platte Valley included German Russians, Greeks, Japanese, Latinos and American Indians.
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| Monitor Bean & Beet Drill, c. 1920s |
Multi-crop planting drills like this one helped farmers economize. Beets and beans were usually planted in rows the same distance apart, which allowed the use of the same implement to plant both crops. Young beet plants required more labor than beans during the period when this drill was in use.
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| Side Dump Wagon |
Side-dump wagons were one of the first steps that streamlined the process of getting beets from farm to factory. They had hooks on one side of the bed and a hinged sideboard on the other. A winch at the beet dump used the hooks to tilt the bed and dump the beets. As the use of gasoline-powered vehicles became common, power hoists on the truck did the work of tilting the bed.
Beet dumps were a critical part of the industry's transportation infrastructure. The dumps were connected to primary rail lines and processing factories by spur lines. This saved farmers many miles of hauling, which not only kept costs down and saved time but also reduced wear-and-tear on equipment and livestock.
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| Great Western Scale House |
This building was one of many scale houses that dotted the landscape of beet country. They were usually built at the end of a spur line from the main railroad. Farmers delivered their harvest to scale houses where the beets were weighed and sampled before being hauled to the factory (usually by rail). This shortened the trip growers needed to make to get their beets to market. Today, most beets travel directly from field to factory in large trucks.
From the frontier studio to the selfie stick, photographs have reflected the current of everyday life in Nebraska. Few pioneer households could afford their own camera, but many made room in their budget for at least one family portrait. Churches, schools, businesses and civic organizations also frequently hired commercial photographers, who did brisk business in small towns throughout western Nebraska.
Frontier lensmen lugged bulky, heavy cameras all over the place, documenting the evolution of North Platte Valley communities from the very first days of settlement. Famous photographers Solomon Butcher and William Henry Jackson were among those who captured the history of the Panhandle Region on film.
It took specialized training and skill to operate 19th century photo equipment. Over time, photography evolved into a do-it-yourself hobby. Mass-market cameras such as the Kodak Brownie made it possible for amateurs to take decent pictures, while newspapers and advertising elevated images to a basic unit of communication. The recent rise of digital technology made photography cheaper and simpler than ever. But we're still just a few generations removed from the cumbersome cameras of yore.
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| McGrew Bank Exhibit |
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| 1903 "Run About" buggy |
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| Dr. Georgia Arbuckle Fix |
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| Dr. Colbert, Dentist |
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| Simmons Wringer Washer |
One of the most labor intensive of all household chores was laundry. Roller wringers were among the first low-tech, time-saving developments. Wringers were sold separately or attached to the tub. Agitation was provided by metal plungers.
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| Anchor Wringer Washer |
This wringer washer features a built-in agitator consisting of a wooden plank with holes in it and a handle. Agitation still required muscle-power, but the user got some leverage from the handle. Wringers first appeared in the mid-1800s, and were still in use well into the 20th century.
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| Half-circle metal tub washer |
This machine still relied on hand agitation, but the handle moved the entire tub. Metal tubs had largely replaced coopered wooden tubs by the 1920s, and soap made in the home (from animal fat, lye and ash) was giving way to store-bought products.
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| Dexter double tub wringer washer |
The Dexter Company was founded in 1894 in Dexter, Iowa, a town named for a famous thoroughbred horse. The company both developed and adopted a new technology, enabling its brand to survive the progression from human-powered wooden tubs to today's microchipped controlled machines. Still in business, Dexter specializes in equipment for coin and commercial laundries. And their logo is still a thoroughbred horse.
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| National vacuum electric washer |
Patented in 1915, this machine was among the first electric washers. The side-mounted motor was vulnerable to getting wet, exposing the user to the possibility of electric shock, not to mention the danger of getting a finger caught in the exposed belts and gears.
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| Maytag electric wringer washer |
Washing machine technology evolved rapidly in the years leading up to the Great Depression (1929), and machines with exposed motors like this one from the early 1900s became uncommon. Maytag thrived even through the hard times of the depression. Technological advances slowed during World War II (1941-45) as many factories were retooled for the war effort. Fully automatic machines became the standard during the prosperity of the 1950s.
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| Mitchell Pass |
This mural was painted by an Italian Prisoner of War. The painter created the mural for the commander of Scottsbluff's POW camp, Lt. Colonel Clyde B. Dempster, in 1946.
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| Roy Rogers plastic saddle |
Saddlemakers Bill Vandegrift, T.C. "Tommy" Neilson and Bernard Thon developed plastic saddles and tack in 1946, partly in response to a leather shortage following World War II. Cowboy star Roy Rogers admired the saddles, and bought at least five of them. They were lightweight, durable and eye-catching. They also replicated the feel of well-finished leather -- or so the product literature claimed. But working cowboys found them brittle and slick when it was cold, and sticky when it was hot. The saddles never caught on despite Rogers' endorsement. The company also made the "Roy Rogers Yo-Yo." The local businessman who financed the Yo-Yo operation wound up with nothing to show for his investment but 46,000 yo-yos. The company stopped making saddles in 1951. But their beauty endures. Today these rare, highly collectible items sell for thousands of dollars each. One plastic saddle fetched more than $100,000 at a 2010 auction.
Roy Rogers gave the plastic saddles high visibility by using them often in public appearances and in at least one of his movies (Son of Paleface).
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| Lockwood potato grader |
The potato grader was used by farmers to grade table stock and seed potatoes on their farms. The table stock was sent to local dealers for distribution, and the undersized seed potatoes were used for next year's crop.
Most potatoes grown in western Nebraska today are destined for the dinner table or sold for seed. Potatoes became an important crop in western Nebraska early in the region's development, helped by the establishment of seed certification program in the 1920s. Today, about 25% of the state's potato harvest is sold for seed, and western Nebraska produces the lion's share of of the state's potatoes.
Early potato farmers were challenged by drastic fluctuations in price. When prices were low, some farmers used their potatoes for livestock feed; others stored them in cellars until market conditions improved. Many farmers donated part of their harvest to help people in need.
Potato chips are America's favorite snack. Potatoes destined to be chips make up about 25% of Nebraska's harvest -- primarily the round, white-fleshed hybrid known as the "Frito-Lay" variety.
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| Keystone Ear Corn Slicer, c. 1920s |
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| Hero Corn Grader, c. 1920s |
These two machines were used to sort corn kernels by size. Before the advent of hybrid seed corn, many farmers selected the biggest, highest-quality ears of corn at harvest time to use as seed stock the following season. After shelling the corn, they used the grader to sort the corn kernels by size. The biggest kernels were planted the following growing season, in the mistaken belief that planting larger kernels would increase yields. Farmers used the slicer to cut whole ears of corn into small sections that were more palatable to cattle.
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| Keystone corn sheller |
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| New Idea corn sheller |
Farmers saved time by using machines like these to get corn kernels off the cob, a process called "shelling." Both machines are heavy-duty, hand-powered implements intended for use on a family farm. The operating principle was the same -- the ears of corn were pulled between two metal wheels with teeth on them to strip the kernels, which fell into a bucket or tub. Many farmers burned the leftover cobs for heat.
Corn is used to manufacture many non-food products, from adhesives to pharmaceuticals. It is also used to make ethanol fuel, a controversial product. Supporters believe it contributes to cleaner air and less dependence on imported oil and gas. Detractors do not believe it is economically or environmentally sustainable in the long term.
Corn is grown around the globe -- the darker green areas in this map produce the most corn. About 20% of the nutritional needs of the planet's human population are met with corn.
Corn is the most completely domesticated of all field crops; it cannot survive in the wild. The major varieties of corn are:
Field corn, or "dent" corn, named for the dent in its kernel, is used for livestock feed.
Sweet corn and popcorn are eaten by people.
Flint corn is used the same way as dent corn. It is grown mainly in Central and South America.
Pod corn or "Indian corn" is grown mainly for ornamental use.
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