Timeline Tuesday: Bedbugs
The current resurgence of bedbugs in the United States has brought the little pests once again into the limelight after decades of obscurity. Our pioneer ancestors, ...
Solomon Butcher
What We Found
Roping Elk
James E. Farley about 1904. NSHS RG2608-2116 (at left).
Cowboys occasionally roped more than cattle or horses, as James E. Farley recalled in Solomon D. Butcher’s ...
Plenty of Work
Solomon D. Butcher’s photograph depicted workmen laying a concrete sidewalk. NSHS RG2608-2952 (left).
Job hunters in Omaha during the booming 1880s had an easier time ...
In Search of Lost Graves
Edmund Perry Brown died as an infant in 1870 (grave at left) and is buried in the family plot on private property in western Lancaster County.
Tombstones are not ...
A Real Romance
Valentine’s Day has long been the day to celebrate romantic love—but, as the Omaha Daily Bee pointed out on April 29, 1882, there’s “Nothing Like a Little Common Sense ...
Pests on the Plains: The Potato Bug
Solomon D. Butcher’s photograph from about 1905 depicted boys working in a sweet potato field at the State Industrial School in Kearney. NSHS RG2608-749 (at ...
The Bachelors’ Protective Union of Kearney
Solomon D. Butcher depicted the cigar stand inside Kearney’s Midway Hotel, which hosted many social events sponsored by the Bachelors’ Protective Union. NSHS ...
Soldier’s Free Homestead Colony of Gibbon
On April 7, 1871, a Union Pacific emigrant train, bearing the members of the Soldier’s Free Homestead Colony, arrived at Gibbon siding in Buffalo County and switched off ...
Rhubarb, the Pie Lover’s Delight
Rhubarb, a plant well known to pie and dessert lovers in Nebraska, has a long history in this state. Its use as a substitute for fruit in a newly settled country where ...
Cherry Day at the Watson Ranch
In 1888, H. D. Watson established the historic Watson Ranch, at one time containing 8,000 acres, reaching from the fertile Platte Valley on the south to the rolling ...
Bat and Bible
With the family Bible on father’s knee and a baseball bat under the youngest daughter’s chair, these Nebraska homesteaders are ready for anything Custer County can pitch ...
Who Can Grow the Biggest Pumpkin?
Custer County Fair display at Broken Bow in 1886. RG2608-2964
Nothing says gardening success like a giant pumpkin. Displays of oversized tomatoes, potatoes, turnips, ...
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