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Volunteer Spotlight – Fort Atkinson State Historical Park

Living history volunteer Bob Baker celebrates 30 years at Fort Atkinson State Historical Park  By Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley Fort Atkinson State Historical Park is located in Fort Calhoun, Washington County. The original military post was active 1819-1827, and its main purpose was to protect the American fur trade by guarding the “gateway to the West.” At its height, Fort Atkinson housed nearly a quarter of the standing U.S. Army (approximately 1,200 soldiers) and roughly that many civilians lived just beyond the …

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Early Road Signs

By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska We take for granted that roads will be marked to show directions and hazards. That wasn’t always the case. Early highways were more of a do-it-yourself affair for private groups and local communities. Private organizations began promoting “automobile trails” in the 1910s and ’20s. A group would navigate a cross-country route along local farm roads and then promote this dirt-road path as a “highway.” Local communities eager to attract motorists then marked the route …

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The Ponca Powwow

Story and photos by Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley The 29th Annual Northern Ponca Tribe Powwow is Aug. 11-13, 2023, with grand entries — ceremonial entrances to the grounds by tribal dancers — at 7 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m. Sunday. The powwow grounds are located 1 mile west of Niobrara on Highway 12: If coming from the east, turn left at the Ponca sign, located across Niobrara State Park, and follow the pavement. All dancers and …

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The Last Relic

By Eric Fowler Coulda, coulda, shoulda. Our lives can be full of them. The story of one of mine began in 1999, the first time I visited Niobrara State Park. From the hilltop overlooking the Niobrara River, I could see a rooftop poking out of the trees in the riverbottom. I was told it was the picnic shelter in the old park, the one that opened in 1935 and was closed when the park moved to its current location in …

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Neligh Mill at 150

By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska Neligh Mill, in the northeastern Nebraska town of Neligh, is a place where the past doesn’t feel all that long ago — as if the mill workers have gone for coffee and will be back shortly. The 19th century machinery is still in place, and longtime site supervisor Harv Ofe can tell you how it all worked. Yellowed notices and posters adorn the walls, and penciled graffiti shows the math of long-ago transactions and …

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Crossing the Platte, ‘the meanest of rivers’

By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska This is our experience crossing Platte River; the meanest of rivers — broad, shallow, fishless, snakeful, quicksand bars and muddy waters — the stage rumbles over the bottom like on a bed of rock; yet haste must be made to effect a crossing, else you disappear beneath its turbid waters, and your doom is certain,” so reads an 1862 emigrant diary quoted by historian Merrill Mattes in his landmark book, The Great Platte River …

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Memorial Stadium Turns 100

By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska What’s the proper way to break ground for the new home of the Cornhuskers? With a team and a plow, of course! University officials broke ground on Memorial Stadium on April 26, 1923. An estimated thousand people showed up to hear speeches and watch Chancellor Samuel Avery ceremonially plow a furrow. There was a recent precedent for this. A year earlier, Governor Samuel McKelvie had plowed a furrow to break ground for the new …

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A Soldier Returns to Fort Atkinson

By Eric Fowler Were it not for happenstance, we might know little about Lt. Gabriel Field. When John “Jack” Rathjen uncovered a portion of his headstone while plowing a crop field in 1954, it led to the exhumation of six graves, including Field’s, north of where Fort Atkinson, the first U.S. military fort in what was to become Nebraska, had once stood. In the years that followed, historians, both professionals and amateurs, searched through military and genealogical records trying to …

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Collecting Cool, Old Outdoor Things

My wife thinks I am a hoarder. I believe I am a collector of things. I tell my wife, Polly, that a collector finds special value in one type of thing but the hoarder finds value in innumerable things, thus the reason for keeping everything. I don’t keep everything. Just the cool things of value, whether intrinsically or monetarily, that I find outdoors or outdoors-related to be displayed. I guess you could say that I am into ‘alternate de-cluttering.’ For …

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Why Kearney Will Become a Second Minneapolis

By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska Kearney was booming in 1889 when city boosters commissioned a promotional book The City of Kearney, Nebraska. A copy of this boastful, lavishly illustrated book is in History Nebraska’s collections. Divided into brief sections, the book covers topics such as “Why Kearney Must Become a Railroad Center,” “Why Kearney Will Be a Large Manufacturing Center,” “Why Kearney Will Become a Second Minneapolis,” and others. Most pages also feature beautiful engravings of local scenes. Kearney …

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