Buffalo
Overland travelers almost always made some mention of buffalo. The mere sight of so many animals in such vast herds amazed them. Estimates have placed the number of ...
Great Plains
What We Found
Buffalo and Cow Chips
The scarcity of wood west of the one hundredth meridian forced a reliance on animal-made fuel there. Buffalo excrement, when allowed to dry a few weeks in the hot Plains ...
Flashback Friday: Building a Log Cabin on the Treeless Plains
Historian Everett Dick referred to the Great Plains as the “sod-house frontier,” and Nebraska photographer Solomon Butcher made many iconic images of soddies, but ...
Miles, Mules, and Men: The Forgotten Front of the Civil War
Note: the word Indian is used instead of Native American as it was the norm at the time.
Imagine your car. Now consider the amount of gas that it requires to keep it ...
Sailing through Fort Kearny in a Wind Wagon
This artist’s conception of Samuel Peppard’s wind wagon as it was departing Fort Kearny in May 1860, appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper on July 7 of that ...
Upcoming Talk and Signing for New Book on Nov. 17
NSHS has released a new book, and you could get it signed! A Brave Soldier & Honest Gentleman: Lt. James E. H. Foster in the West, 1873-1881 features the never ...
Crazy Horse’s Sacred Bundle Buried In Minatare Nebraska
The medicine bundle of Oglala Lakota leader Crazy Horse is six feet deep somewhere in Minatare, Nebraska. A medicine bundle was a package that contained a man’s most ...
The Changing Image of George Armstrong Custer
Lt. Col. George Custer was once considered “the model of a Christian warrior.” In the 1870s, poets called him heroic, splendid and glorious. One magazine editor called ...
Robert Louis Stevenson on the Plains of Nebraska
Robert Louis Stevenson
Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) is best remembered for his romantic fiction, but he was also the author of colorful ...
One Thousand Miles from Home on the Wild Prairie
Like many men in 1849, Charles Darwin (not that one) was struck with gold fever and headed to the California gold fields. And, like many men in 1849, he failed. But his ...
Photographing Across the Plains: Charles R Savage in 1866
The only known photographs of overland emigrants crossing Nebraska, in possession of the Nebraska State Historical Society, were taken by Charles R Savage. Savage is ...
Discovering High Plains Horsemanship through Nebraska Archeology
History Nebraska houses collections from archeological sites spanning 12,000 years of human history across the state. Recently, research on broken horse bones from our ...
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