The WPA Guide to Nebraska: The Cornhusker State

By Federal Writers' Project

During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authorsmany of whom would later become celebrated literary figureswere commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor.

Originally published in 1939, the Cornhusker State is thoroughly detailed in this WPA Guide to Nebraska. In photographs and essays, the guide primarily depicts an agrarian state but it also contains an interesting essay on the state’s unicameral legislature; Nebraska is the only state in the union with this form of government.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trinity University Press
• Release date: Oct 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781595342256

Book preview

Modern Nebraska

THE traveler crossing Nebraska gets an impression of broad fields, deep skies, wind, and sunlight; clouds racing over prairie swells; herds of cattle grazing on the sandhills; red barns and white farmhouses surrounded by fields of tasseling corn and ripening wheat; windmills and wire fences; and men and women who take their living from the soil.

Statehood came in 1867, and many of the old inhabitants can remember the land before it was touched by the plowshare. Corn grows on slopes where buffalo once grazed. Tractors pull plows and harrows over land where the war whoops of Sioux and Pawnee once echoed. Spades turn up the remnants of old Indian villages and the bones of ancient dinosaurs. Graves mark the routes of the great overland trails.

Here the Middle West merges with the West. The farms and small towns in the eastern half suggest the rich, more densely populated country of Iowa and Illinois. The cities have much of the fast tempo and business-like ways that prevail in the larger cities of the Midwest. But, in western Nebraska, fields give way to the great cattle ranches of the sandhill area, life is more leisurely and manners are more relaxed. Something of the Old West still survives—a cowboy riding hard against the sky, a herd of white faces coming down from the hills to water, bawling calves at branding time. Here neighbors think nothing of strolling across a mile or two of prairie to pay an evening call, and one can travel for hours without finding a sign of human habitation. On the high plateaus of the Panhandle, where the wind cuts along the broad valley of the Platte, rocks and buttes rise. Occasionally a coyote may be seen crossing a blowout hollowed by the wind among the dunes.

In the hundreds of small country towns that dot the State, life revolves around the lodges and clubs. Influences sift through from the two coasts by way of magazines, movies, and radio, but the talk is predominantly of crops and weather, grasshoppers, chinch bugs, and the price of cattle and hogs.

The farm region has suffered much in the past from years of drought, insect pestilence, and depression. But debt-ridden farmers seed their fields again. It is this determination to remain on the land, this never-ending struggle of human strength and will against natural forces, that characterizes the Nebraska temperament. The pioneers watched their crops shrivel under the hot winds and drought, yet they doggedly plowed their corn rows; old Jules Sandoz saw his sandhill orchard beaten to the ground by hailstones, and planted his trees again. These men changed a wilderness into a State of productive farms and ranches. Many of their holdings are now heavily mortgaged or have passed into the hands of absentee landlords; but few among their descendants, even though they may be prepared to follow other occupations, can be persuaded that they belong elsewhere than on the land.

Much of the soil is still fertile, but rainfall is often insufficient, and sun and winds play havoc with the land. Today many Nebraskans are concerned with the issues of conservation of water resources, defenses against soil erosion, new and better ways of farming, and the development of public power projects. In thickly settled eastern counties, many farmers look with favor upon programs of rural electrification and planned agriculture. But in western counties pioneering in the old sense still continues to some extent. Families living in cheap frame and sod houses, often twenty miles or more from the nearest town, depend on their individual effort to fight the hazards of nature.

Only two of Nebraska’s cities have populations of more than 25,000—Omaha with 214,000 and Lincoln with 79,000. In Omaha an industrial present overlays the not remote past of a great cattle and railroad town. Lincoln, with its university, churches, and its modern Capitol, represents (in contrast) the political and educational aspirations of innumerable small towns and farms. Its educators train youths as vigorous as the farms to which, in large measure, they will return; its legislators arrive fresh from talking to their constituents face to face. People take a personal and peculiarly close interest in government. This, along with a tenacious love of the land, is a characteristic trait.

The State’s two most important annual gatherings are held at Omaha and Lincoln: the Ak-Sar-Ben at Omaha, renowned for its pageantry, and the State Fair at Lincoln. At the fair, town and country meet in lively confusion. It is at once holiday and farm institute. The crowds look with pride and interest at great exhibits of livestock, of prize vegetables and flowers, of improved farm machinery and implements. The fair represents all Nebraska.

That Nebraskans are practical in temper—a trait growing out of their continual struggle for life—has been shown frequently by their choice of leaders regardless of caste or political label. The man and his actions are what count. In the election of 1936, the confusion of usual party lines in Nebraska was the cause of Nation-wide amusement: Democrats and Republicans supported each other or went to the aid of Independents in whatever way they considered expedient.

The careers of the two most colorful Nebraskans in national life—William Jennings Bryan and Senator George W. Norris—though apparently dramatic anomalies, follow the Nebraska pattern. It was Bryan’s close touch with the everyday world, the simplicity and honesty of his views—progressive at the time—that endeared him to his State. Senator Norris, through his long years as champion of conservation and the use of the Nation’s resources for the benefit of all, has won support at home by his understanding of the needs and problems of the common man.

Influenced by the industrial development of the East and by the independence and individualism of the West, Nebraska seems to follow a middle course of liberalism rooted in the soil. Despite the contrasts in topography, it is unified by its small towns and rural districts where each man knows his neighbor.

Natural Setting

Geography and Climate

IN 1842, Lieut. John C. Frémont led an expedition to explore the country lying between the Kansas and Platte Rivers. On his return, he attempted to descend the Platte, but gave up the venture after dragging his boat for three or four miles over the sandy bottom of the river. In his report to the Government he wrote: The names given by the Indians are always remarkably appropriate; and certainly none was ever more so than that which they have given to this stream—the Nebraska, or Shallow River!

When the Secretary of War read the report and noted this Indian name for the Platte River, he suggested it as the name for the new Territory west of the Missouri River. This Territory extended from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains and from the fortieth parallel to the Canadian border, including wholly or in part the present States of Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. The name of the Territory became that of the new State on March 1, 1867.

The State of Nebraska is a little north of the geographic center of the United States, and the greater part of its area lies in the Great Plains, between the Rocky Mountains and the Central Lowland. The Missouri River, the only natural boundary of the State, separates Nebraska from Missouri and Iowa on the east and from part of South Dakota on the northeast. South Dakota bounds the State on the north, Wyoming and Colorado on the west, and Colorado and Kansas on the south.

According to the latest computations, the total area of Nebraska is 77,520 square miles, of which 712 are water surface. The surface as a whole slopes to the southeast. Altitudes range from about 825 feet in the southeastern corner of Richardson County to about 5,430 feet in western Banner County. The topography is somewhat diversified, but in general about half of the area is of the Dissected Plains type (much eroded moraine country), and the remainder is made up of constructional plains, as yet mostly undissected by erosion.

The eastern end of the State, a strip averaging about seventy miles in width and paralleling the Missouri River, is part of the Dissected Till Plains. The Loess Region, a triangular area of approximately 42,000 square miles underlain by thick loess deposits, extends over the southwestern half of the State. Of this, about 14,000 square miles remain uneroded.

The Sandhills region in the north central and central western part of the State is the most clearly defined topographic subdivision and occupies about 20,000 square miles, including some small outlying areas. It is more suitable for grazing than cultivation. The surface is a rolling plain of wind-blown sand and dunes lying on ridges and hills of eroded bedrock formations. The sand is now largely stationary, for the roots of prairie grasses and other vegetation have checked wind erosion.

The remainder of the State, a little more than 15,000 square miles, is made up of undissected high bedrock plains or tables, rough broken areas, and valley plains and terraces. Some of the higher land in the western part is used for grazing, and some for the growing of wheat, potatoes, and hay. The sugar beet is a principal crop in the irrigated valleys.

The Platte River is the main stream of the State, and is formed by the confluence of the North and South Platte Rivers east of the city of North Platte. From this point its valley is wide and flat until, at Ashland, it enters the narrow bedrock gorge which it follows to the Missouri River at Plattsmouth. The elevation of the Platte River above sea level is about 2,760 feet at North Platte and decreases gradually to 1,180 feet at Fremont. The upland plain between these points descends from an elevation of 200 to 300 feet above river level to 100 or 150 feet. The North Platte River enters the State from Wyoming and flows through a fertile irrigated valley for about 180 miles to its junction with the South Platte River east of North Platte. The North Platte Valley is nearly 800 feet deep at Scottsbluff, and from 200 to 300 feet below the uplands at North Platte. The elevation of the North Platte River above sea level ranges from more than 4,000 feet at the Wyoming State Line to about 2,760 feet east of North Platte. Pumpkin Creek, Blue Water Creek, and Birdwood Creek are the main tributaries in Nebraska.

The discharge of the South Platte River, which enters the State from Colorado, is variable and leaves a dry bed in the summer. It flows at elevations above sea level ranging from about 3,430 feet at the Colorado State Line and 3,200 feet near Ogallala, to 2,760 feet where it joins the North Platte. The uplands along the South Platte range from 200 to 300 feet above the river level. Lodgepole Creek, its most important tributary, flows eastward through Kimball, Cheyenne, and Deuel Counties, and leaves the State to enter the South Platte a few miles west of Julesburg, Colorado.

The Loup River is the largest tributary of the Platte, and is formed by the union of the North, Middle, and South Loup Rivers. These three streams originate in the Sandhills region, are fed by spring and seepage water, and flow southeastward through the Loess Hills region to the Platte River Valley. The well-defined valleys along their courses range in depth from shallow basins in their upper levels to depressions of from 100 to 200 feet in the lower reaches.

Large quantities of water are discharged from the Platte River Basin during the winter and spring months, but at times during the dry season the discharge shrinks to practically nothing in the region between Gothenburg and Columbus. This shrinkage is partly due to high evaporation, but perhaps mainly to the large seepage loss from the Platte Valley through the buried gravel sheets that dip away from the Platte to the southeast. Here this same water reappears in seepages and springs. In the dry season, the water discharged into the Missouri River from the Platte comes mainly from the Loup and Elkhorn Rivers.

The Elkhorn River heads in Brown County, flows for the most part through a wide flat valley, and drains much of the prairie plains, portions of the high plains tables, and a large area of the Loess Hills of northeast Nebraska. Where it enters the Platte River Valley the upland plain is from 100 to 150 feet above river level.

The Niobrara River, the largest crossing the northern part of the State, is mainly a Nebraska stream. It is normally only a few feet wide where it enters the State in Sioux County, but it increases gradually to a small river where it leaves the high plains and enters the sandhills in the middle part of its course. Several important and many small tributaries flow into the Niobrara River from deep canyons on either side. The more important are Snake Creek, Gordon Creek, Minnechaduza Creek, Plum Creek, Long Pine Creek, Keyapaha River, and Verdigre River. The elevation above sea level of the Niobrara River at Agate is 4,440 feet, at Valentine 2,500 feet, and at Niobrara 1,250 feet.

The Republican River, near the Kansas-Nebraska line, drains the southern part of the Nebraska Plain and the more dissected areas of the Loess region south of the Platte River. A few well-developed tributaries enter it from the south, and a great many smaller streams flow into it from the north. The Big Blue River, tributary of the Kansas Blue River, drains a part of the Dissected Till Plains and the eastern end of the Nebraska Plain; its valley ranges in depth from 50 to 60 feet in its upper course to from 130 to 150 feet near Wymore. The West Blue, its chief tributary, is 88 miles long. The Little Blue River crosses the Nebraska Loess Plain, and its drainage basin lies almost wholly within this area. The Big and the Little Blue join in Kansas, about 20 miles south of the State line.

Each of the three regions of the State has distinct climatic characteristics; the western tablelands, for example, are generally cooler in summer than the eastern plains, owing to the difference in elevation. All the regions, however, have in common the variability of typical inland climate. Averages have little meaning. While the normal mean annual temperature is 48.7° F. and the average range of temperature from winter to summer around 100 degrees, Nebraskans have shivered near stoves when it was 47° below zero and have sought coolness in cellars when temperatures were up to 118°. The normal winter mean is about 20°, and the summer 75°. The average date for the beginning of winter is December 6, but this season may start as early as October or as late as January. The climate is generally healthful. The proportion of cloudless days is high, the relative humidity, on the average, is low, and fogs or mists are few.

Throughout the year the northwest wind generally prevails, but the hot winds of summer blow from the south or southwest. A type of west wind called the chinook blows across the Rockies into northwestern Nebraska, causing that corner of the State to be warmer in winter than some other regions in the same latitude.

The cyclonic areas that bring most rainfall to the State (the southwest-northeast disturbances) fortunately reach Nebraska during the growing season. Rainfall, however, is not evenly distributed over the State, the eastern part having almost twice as much rain as the western. For this reason population is greater in the east; so also the proportion of land under cultivation and the value of farm lands.

The more devastating of Nebraska’s droughts occurred in the years 1894, 1934, and 1936; and the State’s severest winters were those of 1857, 1873, 1881, and 1936. The periods between winter and summer have usually been pleasant. Spring has changeable weather; fall brings the most clement weather and colorful countrysides of the year.

Geology and Paleontology

When Nebraska is divided into natural regions on the basis of soil, consideration is given only to that thin layer of earth lying nearest the surface, which is continually being formed by the action of plants, animals, and weathering. The material lying under this topmost layer, the parent material from which soil is made, is sometimes called the mantlerock, as contrasted with the hard bedrock beneath.

The formation of this mantlerock, or soil-stuff, was largely the work of four agents—water, plant and animal life, ice, and wind. The chief work of the ice was completed several thousand years ago, when the last of the glaciers melted. The process of glacial earth formation may be thought of somewhat as follows: A glacier came down from the north, carrying in its frozen mass a layer of boulders, sand, and fine ground rock picked up from the land surfaces it overrode. Eventually the ice melted and a layer of rock, sandy earth, or till was left. Such was the genesis of much of the mantlerock in eastern Nebraska, the only glaciated part of the State.

As the ice slipped down across eastern Nebraska, it dammed certain eastward-flowing rivers. In consequence, the sand and gravel carried by these streams were deposited in the river valleys. Later, when the glacier melted, the water flowed away in great sheets and rivers, taking with it some of the finer soil. In this manner layers of the mantlerock formed in the central part of the State, beyond the glacial path. This process occurred twice in eastern Nebraska, which was covered by both the Nebraskan and Kansan ice sheets.

During the eras between glaciers, before grass and shrubs had time to grow, the winds began their part in distributing fine soil. When a farmer’s wife finds red Oklahoma dust on her cabbage patch after a storm, she is observing the same process as that which did much to create Nebraska’s loess—the rich yellow-gray earth of the eastern and southern portions. This Peorian loess, named for the last of the interglacial periods, is the result partly of glacial action and rainwash, but mainly of wind action that brought soil from the desert regions in the west.

The various strata formed by glacial and wind action are shown in the figure Pleistocene Correlation. In the western part of the State, marked NW. Nebraska Sand Hills, these deposits form a relatively thin layer, mantling an eroded terrain of preglacial (Tertiary) sediments; the top sand is the material left after the fine silt and clay had been sifted out by the winds. South central Nebraska has a heavier deposit, being nearer the glacial region. The two layers of gravel at the bottom of the cross section, the Holdrege and Grand Island formations, are the results of river sedimentation, and of inwash to and outwash from the Nebraskan and Kansan Glaciers; each is from 40 to 100 feet thick; and each has a thin layer of interglacial clay above it.

PLEISTOCENE CORRELATION

The Holdrege and Grand Island gravel strata are of great economic importance to the State. They supply most of central Nebraska’s ground water and are the medium through which water seeps away from the Platte Valley to the southeastern part of the State, reappearing there in the form of springs that feed the Republican, Big Blue, West Blue, and Little Blue Rivers. The two gravel layers with their dividing clay layer are called the Platte series. Just above the Platte series is the Loveland loess-clay; this layer with the wind-blown loess above it constitutes the Plains series.

The cross sections of eastern Nebraska are similar to these, the principal difference being that here the glacial deposits consist of till left directly by the ice, rather than of washed-in sand and gravel. The David City formation at the bottom of this cross section is a gravel layer of early glacial origin. How the strata continue into Iowa is shown in the section on the right of the figure.

The younger strata of the bedrock are rich in fossil remains. Since 1852 the fossil beds of Nebraska have received almost constant attention from paleontologists, and they continue to yield species of animal life previously unknown. For example, the shovel-tusked mastodon was discovered here in 1927, and shortly afterward the same kind of fossil remains were reported in the Gobi Desert. Thanks to the liberal financial support of the late Charles H. Morrill, the Nebraska State Museum has been able to support completely equipped expeditions in the field since 1893. The chief fossil beds in the State are at Agate in Sioux County, 23 miles south of Harrison on State Highway 29, and in Sheridan County, about 16 miles south of Hay Springs.

Paleontological research in Nebraska owes much to Dr. Erwin Hinckley Barbour, veteran paleontologist and director of the Nebraska State Museum. The Morrill expeditions under his direction have made important contributions to science. The researches of Dr. George E. Condra and others of the Nebraska Geological Survey have thrown invaluable light on the invertebrates of the Pennsylvanian and other early strata.

Nebraska strata provide significant indications of the great Age of Mammals. More than 60 million years ago a continental uplift took place during which the Rocky Mountains were formed. Fresh-water streams pouring down from the newly formed mountains fed the brackish lakes that remained as the last remnants of the Cretaceous Sea. Slowly these lakes became fresh. The climate was semi-tropical and the vegetation correspondingly luxuriant. Toward the close of this period, called the Cretaceous, the warm-blooded mammals appeared. Small and insignificant, but agile, they were destined to replace the dominant saurians of the earlier world.

Exposures in Nebraska of the next, or Tertiary period, include the Brule clay of the northwestern Badlands, and the Chadron formations. The country at that time was apparently very flat, and in seasons of flood great regions were covered with shallow temporary ponds. These, along with deposits of volcanic ash, helped to preserve the bones of many animals. The decreasing number of warmth-loving species (such as the crocodile) found in these deposits indicates that the climate was becoming cooler.

CHALK BLUFFS, NIOBRARA RIVER

CHALK BLUFFS, NIOBRARA RIVER

The huge animals commonly known as titanotheres were the largest creatures of this period. At first small and hornless, they developed greater and greater proportions, sometimes reaching a length of 14 feet and a height of 10 feet at the shoulder. Powerful and heavy-bodied, their appearance became even more impressive with the development of massive, flattened, and shovel-like horns extending beyond the snout. The animals were browsers and it is likely that the coming of the grasses, which replaced the more succulent vegetation of the lower Oligocene, resulted in their extinction and the rise of the herbivores.

Common also are the oreodonts, an exceedingly numerous and varied group of animals slightly piglike in appearance and size. They must have lived in great numbers in the forests and along the streams, feeding upon the vegetation of the time. It is generally agreed that the camel, commonly regarded as an Old World animal, is also American in origin, and its progenitors are recognizable in the Oligocene. The Oligocene horses were already well started on their evolutionary road, but were still considerably smaller than modern sheep; they were three-toed, and had teeth adapted only for browsing upon soft vegetation. Their future development awaited the rise of the great grasslands.

SKELETON OF LARGEST MAMMOTH, NEBRASKA STATE MUSEUM, LINCOLN

SKELETON OF LARGEST MAMMOTH, NEBRASKA STATE MUSEUM, LINCOLN

The next epoch, the Miocene, is a long period which has been estimated as beginning some twenty million years ago and extending approximately eighteen million years to the Pliocene. The climate which probably today would be called subtropical, was nevertheless becoming imperceptibly cooler.

Unusual animals of this period were the horned gophers, the huge Dinohyus, a primitive type of pig six feet or more in height with formidable tusks and head, grazing camels, and tall browsing giraffe-camels with very long necks and legs. Saber-toothed tigers as well as true cats had increased in size, and there were huge bearlike dogs. Browsing horses were still present, but true grazing types were developing and replacing the older forms. An odd shambling beast called Moropus, distinctly related to the horse, also existed. Unlike the horse, however, he was equipped with a set of large claws, which he probably used to uproot edible tubers.

With the coming of Pliocene time additional forms of the mastodon appeared, a few of which had been found in the upper Miocene. But the period is comparatively little known, and it was not until the oncoming glaciation at the close of the Pliocene caused a crisis in living conditions all over the world that any striking changes appear in the geological chronology in Nebraska.

GEOLOGICAL FORMATION

The yellow loess representing various stages of the Pleistocene, as well as the deposits from the melting ice, left a graphic record of the changing climatic conditions in the State, which five times lay partially under or at the very edge of the advancing ice sheets. The time-range of that epoch is generally estimated at a million years. The Pleistocene and recent times together are generally taken as representing the Quaternary or Age of Man, as contrasted to the Tertiary, which is regarded as the Age of Mammals.

The movement southward of northern life before the edge of the advancing ice sheets brought many typical northern species into Nebraska. The advances and withdrawals of the ice sheets were accompanied by similar changes in the fauna corresponding to the warm and cold periods, the duration of a single warm or cold period extending over many thousands of years. It is unlikely that the great proboscide hordes that swarmed over Nebraska throughout the Pleistocene were all adapted to endure such temperatures as the woolly mammoth could withstand. From their peculiar adaptations it may be inferred that they fed upon succulent aquatic plants during interglacial times.

The giant beaver, the largest known rodent of past or modern times, approximating the black bear in size, inhabited Nebraska. This animal originated in America in the early Pleistocene and disappeared along with the camels. Both the horse and the camel are known from apparently later deposits in the Southwest, but they have not as yet been recorded from Nebraska deposits following the Iowa glaciations. The musk-ox, typically Arctic, is known from deposits correlating with the time of the second glacial period.

The great imperial mammoth disappeared comparatively late, probably in the short interglacial period preceding the onset of the final Wisconsin ice. Its extinction probably marks the disappearance of the western forests, as its tooth structure indicates that it was a browsing animal. The woolly mammoth apparently came late in the Pleistocene. It was a grazing animal, and survived the final glaciation only to disappear at its close.

The bison are represented by several huge and long-horned specimens. As the end of the Pleistocene approached, they tended to grow smaller in size and to resemble more closely the modern species. There is some difficulty in determining whether or not one or two of these forms became extinct either before or after the final glaciation, though evidence from other areas shows that several forms, at one time regarded as having become extinct in the Middle Pleistocene, actually survived into its closing phase.

Animal Life

Of the animals known to the early settlers of Nebraska, many are now found only in zoos or on game reserves. Best known of these vanishing types are the buffalo, the pronghorn antelope, and the mule deer. Grizzly bears have been known to range into Nebraska, but not in recent years; and the beaver, abundant in the early days of the fur trade, is now seldom found.

Among animals still common in the State are the coyote, kit fox, jack-rabbit, badger, striped ground squirrel, and prairie dog, whose characteristic towns are often a refuge for the prairie rattler. Smaller rodents are numerous and are probably increasing since the wholesale destruction of so many birds of prey. In the woodlands the porcupine, woodrat, and red squirrel are still plentiful. The skunk is common over the entire State.

Prairie chickens, grouse, and various migrating waterfowl, while still present, must have been far more abundant in the prehistoric past. In the sandhill country with its numerous small lakes and ponds, water birds still breed in large numbers. This area was probably avoided by the great buffalo herds, because of its sparse pasturage, so thin that many acres are necessary to support one cow. Nevertheless, birds and small mammals, including the raccoon, are still abundant in the brushy areas of wild plum, sagebrush, and greasewood. Sand cherries, wild plums, raspberries, and large quantities of small seed provide excellent food for birds.

PHEASANT

PHEASANT

Partly to assist the farmers in the destruction of insect pests, the State Game Commission imported a few dozen pheasants in 1915. Three varieties were included: the Chinese ringnecked, the English ringnecked, and the Mongolian. During the next decade approximately 500 pairs were imported. The pheasants now in the State, some three million in number according to an estimate made in 1936, are a mixture of the original varieties.

The broadleaf forests of the Missouri bluff and bottomlands in the eastern section of the State contain a fauna similar to that of the woodlands in eastern States. The wooded ravines, marshes, ponds, and shifting sandbars provide a varied habitat, in contrast to the western grasslands.

This topographical variety in the State helps to account for the large number of birds that live in Nebraska or pause here during migration. Common among the more than 400 species known in the State are the robin, most familiar of early-spring singers; the sparrow, who plagues the farmer by nesting in hen houses; and the blackbird, noisiest in the fall when his tribe holds convention before going south. Mourning doves are numerous; every motorist knows their habit of alighting on country roads and not taking flight till a car is almost upon them. Any old-fashioned barn in the State is likely to have its flock of wild pigeons, and maybe an owl or two. Barn swallows build their mud nests in stables and hoghouses; in the evening they like to swoop down across the farmyard and tease the cats.

Meadowlarks might be more numerous if they did not build their nests on the ground; even so, they are common enough to be called the State bird. Mocking birds have been heard in the State, but the best singing bird that is commonly known is the brown thrush. Its twin phrases, remarkably varied, are nothing like the harsh angry burr with which it threatens anyone who comes near the nest. Wrens and martins are occasionally seen. Catbirds, orioles, woodpeckers, crows, and jays are all well known to Nebraskans. Hawks are less numerous than they should be; farmers too often shoot any hawk as a chicken thief, although many species do no harm and are valuable in killing insects and rodents.

Ducks and geese in their seasons of flight make Nebraska lakes and ponds their feeding grounds. The season in which they may be hunted is at present fixed by Federal authority. Tamest of migratory birds is the pink-breasted Franklin gull that swoops around the plowman and alights on the freshly turned earth to hunt for food. Some farmers believe they can prophesy rain by the behavior of these gulls or by that of mourning doves, rain crows, and killdeer.

Many of the fish that live in Nebraska rivers and creeks come up from the Missouri River and its tributaries. The average Nebraska fisherman thinks mostly in terms of carp, catfish, crappies, and bullheads (species of catfish); he knows the sunfish by its colors, the crawfish because it steals his bait. In the streams of western Nebraska are trout; in the lakes are bass. Other fish caught in the State are perch, suckers, wall-eyed pike, buffalo fish, and pickerel. Frogs, eels, and turtles are also found.

Plant Life

Plant life in Nebraska shows striking differences due to the two dissimilar grass areas. One, lying north of an imaginary line drawn from the southwest corner of the State to the mouth of the Niobrara, is rather arid; the other, lying below this line, is more humid.

The vast plains of the western portion of the State, when first entered by the white man, were covered with the short perennial grasses that gave this territory its name—the short grass country. The dominance of this type of grass is due to the scanty rainfall which is seldom over 20 inches annually. Cactus and other desert plants are found locally where conditions are favorable, as in the neighborhood of the Badlands. Pines along the higher slopes of Wildcat Range and Pine Ridge migrated into these areas from farther west. The forests of the Pine Ridge country, along with those of the Niobrara and Lodgepole districts, include an area of some 500 square miles. They are made up mostly of western yellow pine and some red cedar, although certain other coniferous trees, like Norway pine and white spruce, have been introduced. Birches grow in the canyons of the Pine Ridge country.

In the eastern half of Nebraska, where rainfall is heavier and extends over a longer period, the total available ground water is seldom exhausted. Under these favorable conditions the tall prairie grass appears. It begins to grow much earlier in the season than does the short western species. Most of the trees now peculiar to eastern Nebraska (excepting introduced types such as the tree of heaven) migrated into the State from the south and southeast along the Missouri and its tributaries. Among these are the oak, basswood, sycamore, and hickory, found along the bluffs of southeastern Nebraska.

Certain trees are common to both eastern and western Nebraska—the cottonwood, for example, which provided shelter, fuel, and building logs for the pioneers Willows are common in all the valley bottoms, along with the elm, the ash, and box elder. Walnut trees are sometimes planted and cultivated; they also grow wild along the rivers. Shells found in the refuse from early Indian villages show that walnuts were long used as food by the aborigines. The hackberry is distributed over all the State and is an ancient form, being known from fossil deposits of previous geological periods.

Among native shrubs and smaller trees are the wild plum and chokecherry, both utilized by the earliest inhabitants of Nebraska. The Osage-orange, which is common as a hedge in eastern Nebraska, is a comparatively recent introduction.

Nebraska has also a considerable number of wild flowers, including the violet, wild rose, larkspur, phlox, spiderwort, blueflag, poppy, mallow, waterlily, petunia, columbine, yellow ladyslipper, and several species of anemone, as well as the goldenrod and sunflower. In years when winds and drouth are not too severe, the variety and number of wild flowers are particularly remarkable in parts of the western tablelands, as in Scotts Bluff County. Well before the last snows, often before the last zero weather, the first flowers—tiny blossoms of dwarf moss-phlox—appear on the southern edges of high ridges. They are sun worshippers—the whole south side of a clump may be fully in bloom, while only scattered blossoms appear on the north side. A small townsendia with half a dozen daisylike blossoms, about an inch from the ground, also blooms early in this same area.

Later in the season, when the early rains have come, there are flowers throughout the whole region from the highest ridges to the lowest Badlands. On the hopelessly unproductive Brule Clay appear clumps of yellow umbels above pinnate leaves—for a time the dominant Badlands flower; it is the pseudocymopterus, and has no common name. Masses of tiny-flowered orophaca with their lavender blossoms grow in patches several square feet in area. In addition there are vetches, evening-primroses, and phlox of several species. In the grass just off the Badlands a common flower is Nuttall’s violet with its ovate-lanceolate leaves and small yellow flowers.

Soapweed (Yucca angustifolia), a species of lily, grows in a variety of places from low plains to ridge tops; the bladelike leaves hold their green through even the severest winters, and in season the plant bears cream-colored blossoms on a stout stem.

In late spring or early summer wild roses of two or three species appear, generally in or bordering ravines. One of the more common is the prickly rose (Rosa acicularis) with purple-red buds and pink blossoms, similar to the common wild rose of Northern Europe and Asia. An occasional Mariposa lily is found. There are several species of mustard, with yellow flowers and curious handle bar seed pods.

One of the larger summer flowers is Fremont’s primrose; its blossoms, about two inches in diameter, are pale lemon-yellow, but as they age and begin to fade they pass through shades of yellow-orange, orange, and orange-red. Pentstemon appears in many species, an upright plant with bunches of trumpet-shaped flowers, generally white or blue. At least five species of cactus bloom in the summer; the flowers are of delicate texture, yellow or rose. Low mallows with salmon-colored flowers line the road-sides; also gaura, with reddish blossoms.

In early fall the cleome comes into bloom, showing loose clusters of lavender-pink blossoms along the roads. This plant is used in decorative planting, and its seeds are often gathered for turkey feed. In fall, too, appear the only mass formations of flowers, acres of sunflowers of several species, most of them native. Some reach maturity and full bloom at a height of only six inches, and these patches furnish good shooting grounds, as pheasants have a liking for sunflower seed. The goldenrod, Nebraska’s State flower, is a close rival of the sunflower in its profusion of bloom.

The fall-blooming Chrysothamnus is a bushy plant from two to seven feet high, known in New Mexico as rabbit-brush. It is related to the goldenrod and bears great masses of yellow flowers, completely dominating its area and lasting in full bloom until killed by cold weather.

Late in the year comes Mentzelia, which grows in the worst Badlands. The starry cream-colored blooms resemble waterlilies and open only at night or on cloudy days.

Natural Resources and Their Conservation

The most valuable of Nebraska’s natural resources is the soil, capable of producing crops with comparatively meager rainfall. More than half the top soil of the State is underlain by deposits of rich wind-blown loess; and the alluvial lands of the river valleys are very fertile. Since trees cover only about three percent of the State’s total area, the forests are of little actual value as timber. But following the creation of the Nebraska National Forest in 1902, the benefits of forest groves as windbreaks and in the ultimate enrichment of soils have been generally recognized.

Sand and gravel are the most important commercially of the State’s mineral resources. There are more than 75 large sand and gravel pits, situated mostly along the rivers in the southeastern part of the State. Although their output is used chiefly near the points of production for surfacing roads, making concrete, and other local purposes, considerable amounts are shipped to neighboring States.

At Lincoln, Hastings, Beatrice, Fairbury, Nebraska City, and other places in the eastern part of the State occur large outcrops of clay, suitable for the manufacture of brick, tile, and pottery. Limestone quarries have been opened near South Bend, Meadow, Louisville, Weeping Water, Roca, and other points in southeastern Nebraska, producing stone for building purposes, roadbeds, river improvement work, and the manufacture of cement. Chalk, shale, and limestone are also found and used in building.

Among mineral deposits with no present commercial importance are the extensive beds of volcanic ash located along the Republican River Valley. These have not been extensively worked in recent years because of cheaper production in neighboring States. The area around Lincoln has underground deposits of salt water.

All attempts to find paying quantities of oil and natural gas in Nebraska have failed, but the search perhaps has not been sufficiently exhaustive. Small deposits of coal have been found in the eastern portion of the State, but the veins are not thick enough to make mining profitable.

In addition to its rivers, Nebraska has a good supply of ground water that makes possible the steady flow of such rivers as the Loup, the Niobrara, and the Blue. The State as a whole has excellent well water and in many places the supply is great enough to make well-irrigation possible. Since the great droughts of 1934 and 1936 the people of Nebraska have become aware of the possibilities of irrigation. Their interest has been stimulated by successful crop production in irrigated districts and the availability of Federal funds for irrigation projects. The estimated extent of irrigation in the State is as follows: from canals with water diverted from streams, 570,000 acres; by pumping from ground water and streams, 60,000 acres; by subirrigation from ground water, 1,300,000 acres; by spraying from municipal and rural water supplies, 40,000 acres. The chief irrigated areas lie along the Platte and North Platte Rivers in Scotts Bluff, Morrill, Lincoln, Dawson and Buffalo Counties.

Projects under construction (1938) (see Tours 8 and 12) begin with the Kingsley Reservoir in Keith County where the waters of the North Platte River are impounded by the Kingsley Dam just west of Keystone. As part of the Sutherland Project, the dam not only stores water for irrigation and for conversion into electrical energy, but also diverts water from the river, which is conducted by a series of canals to the Sutherland Reservoir and to a power-house just south of the city of North Platte. Tail water is reconducted into the South Platte just above its junction with the North Platte.

Farther downstream on the Platte is the Tri-County Project, also called the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation Project, which is designed to irrigate 557,000 acres south of the Platte River, in Gosper, Phelps, Kearney, and Adams Counties, and to produce power. It includes the Middle Diversion Dam, south of Lexington, the Plum Creek Reservoir, and the Johnson Canyon Power Plant.

The third important unit is the Loup River Power Project (see Tours 3 and 8), in Nance and Platte Counties, where the waters of the Loup River are impounded by the Genoa Diversion Dam, carried to the Monroe Power Plant and the Columbus Power Plant. This project is designed to supply power to the cities of Columbus, Norfolk, Fremont, Sioux City, Lincoln, and Omaha.

In the spring of 1934 the Soil Conservation Service, in cooperation with the college of agriculture and the conservation and survey division of the university, began work on a soil-and-water-saving program. The Works Progress Administration and the Resettlement Administration have also done work along the same line. The complete soil-erosion control program for Nebraska includes gully control, contour farming, strip cropping, terracing, construction of ponds and reservoirs, winter cover-crops, systematic crop rotation, pasture-land management, and protection against prairie and forest fires.

SUTHERLAND POWER HOUSE

SUTHERLAND POWER HOUSE

The work of reforestation in Nebraska has just begun. In time the forest resources will be enlarged through discovery of trees suitable for the region and through systematic planting. The two national forest reserves in Nebraska, Bessey Division (see Tour 7) and Halsey Division (see Tour 10), have already demonstrated that certain types of pines will thrive even in the sandhill areas. The United States Forest Service has planted several million young trees in a narrow tract of land extending across the State from north to south, known as the Shelter Belt, designed to check erosion and furnish timber. Other work of the service includes the planting of trees on rough lands for timber, for demonstration purposes, and possible climatic effect.

IRRIGATION

IRRIGATION

Both Federal and State Governments have their place in the conservation program. The two national forests raise and distribute millions of small trees for planting throughout the State. The Federal Government also maintains sanctuaries for waterfowl in Garden and Cherry Counties, and a game reserve for buffalo, elk, antelope, and deer in Cherry County. There are two State game reserves—one in the Wild Cat Hills in Scotts Bluff County, and one at Niobrara in Knox County—and four State fish hatcheries. The hatcheries, occupying areas ranging from 30 to 200 acres, are located at Gretna, Benkelman, Rock Creek, and Valentine; all fish produced at these points are shipped to a holding station at Lincoln from which they are distributed to practically all the important streams and lakes in the State. Finally, the Conservation and Survey Division of the University of Nebraska is studying the wildlife habitats of the State. This biological survey will be used as a basis for the future activities of the Nebraska Game, Forestation, and Parks Commission.

Indians

Prehistoric Culture

THE Plains Region, of which Nebraska is a part, has no such spectacular and impressive evidences of the past as exist in the Southwest or Old Mexico. There are no great ruins, no carved monuments resisting the centuries. At one time the Plains area was considered archeologically barren. But today a different view prevails, largely owing to the efforts of the Nebraska State Museum, the Department of Sociology of the University of Nebraska, the State Historical Society at Lincoln, and local collectors. The discoveries made during the past few years in this State and surrounding territory have aroused the attention of many scientists.

A series of striking finds, made by the Morrill Paleontological Expeditions of the University of Nebraska, consisted of artifacts and the bones of extinct bison in old loess deposits. These finds established the presence in the western portion of the State of an extremely ancient culture, first reported from a site near Folsom, New Mexico, from which it takes its name: the Folsom culture. Conservative scientists estimate that this culture existed 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. The Plains at that time are believed to have been better watered than at present, owing to climatic conditions attendant upon the withdrawal of the last great ice sheet that extended into this area. Here primitive man hunted about the water holes of the slowly drying plains, and slew the last survivors of the glacial period—the giant bison, the musk ox, the mammoth. And here he left the strange grooved points, uniquely and beautifully worked, that have come to be known as Folsom points.

The Nebraska State Museum at Lincoln has an exhibition of artifacts belonging to this ancient culture, as well as restored and mounted skeletons of the extinct bison associated with them. The Nebraska State Historical Society Collections are on exhibition in the Capitol at Lincoln.

Investigations by Dr. W. D. Strong, Dr. E. H. Bell, Dr. W. R. Wedel, Mr. A. T. Hill, and others have revealed a moderate amount of cultural variation among these early peoples. It appears that this section of the Plains was dominated twice by Indians possessing a purely hunting culture. Between these two periods was a third in which horticulture and hunting were of nearly equal importance. The first of the hunting periods is believed to have begun with the appearance of the Folsom people and to have lasted for an indefinite length of time. Doubtless on the high plains of western Nebraska the hunt always remained predominant, but in the central and eastern sections are traces of horticultural peoples. Though the young men of the farming tribes made long warlike journeys, farming operations were still carried on.

The oldest evidences of man in eastern Nebraska are known as the Sterns Creek culture and are found near Plattsmouth. This site also contains the oldest evidence of horticulture and pottery-making known in the State. Apparently the people lived in small surface houses with reed-thatched roofs, small poles, and bark walls. They had pottery with distinctive conical bases and scallop decorations around the rims. Stone artifacts are comparatively scarce. Work in bone seems to have been excellent: it included awls, needles, bone beads, and knapping tools of antelope horn. Dr. Strong, of the Bureau of Ethnology, believes that this culture is related to an early Algonkian woodland culture that entered the Plains from Iowa or Wisconsin. The woodland aspect is evident in the predominance of deer bones over those of bison.

Overlying the Sterns Creek culture, and therefore later in origin, is a second horizon on the eastern edge of the State, known as the Nebraska culture. These people lived in square or rectangular earth lodges, and grew maize. The number and variety of vegetal remains, as well as an abundance of bone hoes, indicate a fully developed horticulture. The people made good pottery, reddish brown in color, fairly well polished, and varying widely in size.

The Loess Plains, the tall-grass prairie crossed by the Platte and Republican and other rivers, is an area highly favorable for agriculture. Here the earliest horizon, known as the Upper Republican culture, was investigated under direction of A. T. Hill. In the villages most of the earth lodges were square in outline, but some were round. Graves were on the tops of hills. Shell ornaments were common, including pendants cut from conch-shells, apparently brought in by traders from the Gulf Coast. In one ossuary were wooden-disk ornaments covered with a layer of native copper. Various material traits common to the historic plains Indian are lacking, and to the expert eye the culture resembles that of the southeastern United States. It is very probable that this culture, tentatively designated as Upper Republican, is prehistoric Pawnee.

Farther west in the area of the high plains, where rain was often inadequate for farming, is a site that is—from the standpoint of chronology—one of the most remarkable in the United States. On top of an isolated mesa known as Signal Butte, 4.5 miles south and 18.5 miles west of the city of Scottsbluff, a Smithsonian expedition under Dr. Strong excavated three distinct and superimposed levels of human occupation, separated by sterile layers of barren wind-borne deposit. The uppermost level is prehistoric and suggests a relationship to the Upper Republican culture in its ceramics; it is the only one in which pottery occurs.

The middle layer has been estimated on the basis of climate studies, still of a very tentative and uncertain nature. The material collected from this layer is rather