History of Nebraska
The Plains Indians are the descendants of a long line of succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples in Nebraska who occupied the area for thousands of years before European arrival and continue to do so today.
Fossil skeletons of these animals and period plants were embedded in mud that hardened into rock and became the limestone that appears today on the sides of ravines and along the streams of Nebraska.
During the last two million years, the climate alternated between cold and warm phases, respectively called "glacial" and "interglacial" periods instead of a continuous ice age.
[4] Clayey tills and large boulders, called "glacial erratics", were left on the hillsides during the period when ice sheets covered eastern Nebraska two or three times.
In a battle with the Oto and Pawnee, Villasur and 34 members of his party were killed near the juncture of the Loup and Platte Rivers just south of present-day Columbus, Nebraska.
In 1822, the Missouri Fur Company built a headquarters and trading post about nine miles north of the mouth of the Platte River and called it Bellevue, establishing the first town in Nebraska.
In 1824, Jean-Pierre Cabanné established Cabanne's Trading Post for John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company near Fort Lisa at the confluence of Ponca Creek and the Missouri River.
Travelers also received medical care, had access to blacksmithing and carpentry services for a fee, and could rely on fort commanders to act as law enforcement officials.
[8] The wagon trains gave way to railroad traffic as the Union Pacific Railroad—the eastern half of the first transcontinental railroad—was constructed west from Omaha through the Platte Valley.
[10] In the Scriptown corruption scheme, ruled illegal by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Baker v. Morton, local businessmen tried to secure land in the Omaha area to give away to legislators.
[14][15] In the 1870s and 1880s Civil War veterans and immigrants from Europe came by the thousands to take up land in Nebraska, with this migratory influx helping to rapidly extend westward the frontier line of settlement despite severe droughts, grasshopper plagues, economic distress, and other harsh conditions confronting the new settlers.
The UP's goal was not to make a profit, but rather to build up a permanent clientele of farmers and townspeople who would form a solid basis for routine sales and purchases.
The UP, like other major lines, opened sales offices in the East and in Europe to advertise their lands heavily far away and abroad,[16] offering attractive package rates for migrant farmers to sell out and moved their entire family and necessary agricultural tools to the new destination.
Farmers who attempted to raise corn and hogs in the dry regions of Nebraska faced economic disaster when drought unexpectedly occurred.
In 1907 they enacted a number of progressive reform measures, including a direct primary law and a child labor act, in what was one of the most significant legislative sessions in Nebraska's history.
[24] The 450 miles of the Lincoln Highway in Nebraska followed the route of the Platte River Valley, along the narrow corridor where pioneer trails, the Pony Express, and the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad ran.
[25] In the rural areas farmers and ranchers depended on general stores that had a limited stock and slow turnover; they made enough profit to stay in operation by selling at high prices.
The keys to success were a large variety of high-quality brand-name merchandise, high turnover, reasonable prices, and frequent special sales.
By the 1920s and 1930s, large mail-order houses such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward provided serious competition, so the department stores relied even more on salesmanship, and close integration with the community.
[29] Senator Norris campaigned for the abolition of the bicameral system in the state legislature, arguing it was outdated, inefficient and unnecessarily expensive, and was based on the "inherently undemocratic" British House of Lords.
The Nebraska initiative exemplified the spirit of the Progressive Movement in the quest to impose scientific standards especially in areas related to public health.
[34] During the early years of settlement in the late 19th century, farm women played an integral role in assuring family survival by working outdoors.
[40] Governor Charles W. Bryan, a Democrat, was at first unwilling to request aid from the national government, but when the Federal Emergency Relief Act became law in 1933 Nebraska took part.
Robert L. Cochran, a Democrat who became governor in 1935, sought federal assistance and placed Nebraska among the first American states to adopt a social security law.
[41] Nebraska fully mobilized its labor and economic resources when the federal call to action came at America's entrance into World War II.
The WOW's were a major reason that the Quaker Oats Company, which managed the plant, started one of the nation's earliest corporate child care programs.
For Grand Island, the plant brought good wages, high retail sales, severe housing shortages, and an end to Depression-level unemployment.
The plant became a major social force, demonstrated by its sponsoring of such wide-ranging community groups as local sporting teams and Boy Scouts troops.
There were many smaller satellite camps at Alma, Bayard, Bertrand, Bridgeport, Elwood, Fort Crook, Franklin, Grand Island, Hastings, Hebron, Indianola, Kearney, Lexington, Lyman, Mitchell, Morrill, Ogallala, Palisade, Sidney, and Weeping Water.
On the positive side, Omaha's geographic centrality in the American Interstate Highway System and large well-educated population made the city an attractive place for many small manufacturing concerns to set up shop.
