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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE STATE
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1966 Blue Book
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE STATE
Earliest Records.--The huge fossil beds and glacial deposits of Nebraska give proof that in past geologic ages this region was the bottom of an inland sea, and was later elevated above the water. At one time there prevailed a tropical climate and during a later period, glaciers covered the land. Archeological explorations have uncovered considerable evidence indicating the presence of prehistoric man in the state.
The Nebraska Indians.--The Pawnee Indian tribe was one of the first to be recorded in Nebraska history. Other tribes found by explorers were the Oto, Omaha, Ponca, Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe. With the introduction of the horse by the Spaniards buffalo hunting supplemented primitive agriculture in the mode of living of the Indians. The traditions of the Indians, who numbered about 40,000 at the time of the earliest white settlements in Nebraska, indicate that they had migrated to the Nebraska region a few hundred years before the first explorers.
The First White Men.--Francisco Vasquez Coronado and his party of thirty Spanish cavalrymen were the first white men to visit this region. In the summer of 1541, they crossed the plains from the Rio Grande. Although it is generally accepted that this party reached the present State of Kansas, it is not known whether they came as far north as Nebraska. French fur traders and trappers began to venture up the Missouri River about the year 1700. In 1739 the Mallet brothers, with a party of six Frenchmen, named the Platte River and traveled nearly the entire length of the state on a journey from the Missouri River to Santa Fe. They were followed by many other French fur traders during the next sixty years.
Struggle for Possession of Nebraska.--Spain, France and England all claimed the Nebraska region at different times, basing their claims upon discoveries and explorations. In 1763, at the close of the Seven Years' War, France ceded all her claims east of the Mississippi River to England and west of the Mississippi to Spain. Nebraska was thus a part of the Spanish province of Louisiana from 1763 until 1801, when Napoleon bought it back from Spain. In 1803 France sold the entire region to the United States.
Early American Exploration.--Lewis and Clark were the commanders of the first American expedition to visit Nebraska, in the years 1804-1806. In the year 1811 the Hunt party of Astorians skirted Nebraska on their way to Oregon and in 1813 seven of the party crossed the mountains and followed the North Platte to its junction with the South Platte and thence on along the Platte to the Missouri River. In 1819 Major Long with a party of twenty men traveled from the Missouri River up the Platte to the head waters of its south fork near Denver. During the years 1807-1820 Manuel Lisa, of Spanish descent, but a citizen of the United States, became the leading fur trader and explorer of the Nebraska region.
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The First Military Post.--Fort Atkinson was established in the years 1819 and 1820 and abandoned in 1827. It was upon the site of the present village of Fort Calhoun in Washington County, 16 miles above Omaha. It had a population of over 1,000 people and was the site of the first school, library, brickyard, sawmill, grist-mill and the first extensive farming by white men within the state.
The Early Missionaries.--Reverend Moses Merrill and his wife, Eliza Wilcox Merrill, were the first resident missionaries to the Nebraska Indians. They arrived in Bellevue in 1833 and continued their work as missionaries and teachers until Reverend Merrill died in 1840. Reverend Samuel Allis and Reverend John Dunbar arrived in Believue in 1834 and continued as missionaries to the Pawnee tribe for the next twelve years. Father De Smet, a Catholic missionary, came to Nebraska in 1838 and for the next thirty-five years ministered to the Indians west of the Missouri River.
The Overland Trail.--On April 10, 1830, William L. Sublette set out from St. Louis with a wagon train of merchandise to meet his for-trading partners, Jedediah Smith and David Jackson in Wind River, Wyoming. His route across Nebraska was up the valley of the Little Blue and Platte Rivers. In the fall the three partners returned to St. Louis over the same route. In 1832 Nathaniel J. Wyeth went over the same road to Oregon. This was the beginning of the Oregon Trail, which for the next forty years was the greatest wagon road the world had ever seen. Other trails across Nebraska were the Mormon Trail, starting from Bellevue or Omaha and traveling up the north bank of the Platte; the Denver Trail from the Missouri River to Denver and the "steam wagon road" or Nebraska City cutoff, from Nebraska City up the West Blue to the Platte and on to Denver. These trails were traveled by thousands of wagons every year until the construction of the Pacific railroads.
Steamboats on the Missouri.--The "Western Engineer," which brought Major Long's party on its exploring expedition in September, 1819, was the first steam vessel to navigate Nebraska waters. Other steamboats took part in the Arickara expedition in 1823. In 1832 the steamboat, "Yellowstone," began the first regular annual fur trading voyages up the Missouri River, stopping at points on the Nebraska shore. From 1850 to 1860 steamboat navigation on the Missouri was at its height, forty or fifty different steamboats being in the river trade. With the construction of railroads the steamboat business fell off rapidly until only a few ferryboats and one or two steamboats a year navigated the Missouri River along the Nebraska shore.
Conditions in Nebraska from 1830 to 1854.--Frontier conditions of the most rugged nature prevailed in Nebraska between these years. A few steamboats plied the Missouri River between St. Louis and the head of navigation. The overland trails from the Missouri River to the mountains and Pacific coast were traveled by caravans of emigrants and freighting wagons each summer. A little group of Christian mission-
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aries and teachers were laboring among the Nebraska Indians. A few white fur traders and buffalo hunters followed the streams and crossed the prairies. Fort Kerny, on the Platte River, opposite the present City of Kearney, and Bellevue, on the Missouri River, were the only two white settlements of any size within the present state.
Beginning of Government.--The Nebraska region was part of the Territory of Indiana from October 1, 1804, to July 4, 1805. From July 4, 1805, to December 7, 1812, it was part of the Territory of Louisiana with its capital at St. Louis. It then became a part of the Territory of Missouri until the year 1821 when Missouri was made a state and Nebraska became a part of the unorganized region commonly called the "Indian country." By the act of June 30, 1834, Congress defined the boundaries of the Indian country and enacted laws excluding white men and regulating relations with the Indians. The Indian Superintendent at St. Louis was made governor over the "Indian country."
Nebraska Name and Organization.--The name "Nebraska" first appears in literature about the year 1842. Lieutenant John C. Fremont explored the plains and mountains in that year. His report speaks of the "Nebraska River," the Oto Indian name for the Platte from the Oto word "Nebrathka," meaning "Flat Water." Secretary of War, William Wilkins, in his report of November 30, 1844, says "the Platte or Nebraska River being the central stream would very properly furnish a name to the (proposed) territory." The first bill to organize the new Nebraska Territory was introduced in Congress December 17, 1844, by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. This bill failed to pass, as did the second and third bills of 1848 and 1853. In 1854, a fourth Nebraska bill, now called the "Kansas-Nebraska Bill," was passed after a prolonged and bitter struggle and signed by President Franklin Pierce on May 30, 1854. The prolonged struggle between the slave states and the free states for dominance in the Nebraska region led to the organization of the new Republican Party and precipitated the border conflicts before the Civil War.
The First Nebraska Government..--Francis Burt, of South Carolina, was the first Governor of Nebraska Territory. He arrived at Bellevue, October 7, 1854. He took the oath of office on the 16th, before Chief Justice Ferguson, and his death occurred on October 18, 1854. Thomas B. Cuming became the Acting Governor. A struggle between the new town of Omaha and the old town of Bellevue for the territorial capital was determined in favor of Omaha by Governor Cuming, who called the first session of the Territorial Legislature to meet there January 16, 1855.
The Early Territorial Period.--The prevalent issues of the early territorial Nebraska days involved the settlement of the country, the laws relating to land and currency, the proposed Pacific railroad, the removal of the capital, the rivalry between north and south Platte regions, the organization of the Republican Party in 1858, as a rival of the Demo-
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cratic Party and the defeat of the first efforts to make Nebraska a state. The population grew from 2,732 in November, 1854, to 28,841 in 1860.
The Later Territorial Period.--The election of Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860, the Civil War which followed and the appointment of Alvin Saunders as Governor of Nebraska Territory by President Lincoln in 1861, constitute a dividing period in Nebraska territorial history. The chief events in the later period were the raising of the First Nebraska Regiment under Colonel John M. Thayer for service in the Union Army; the enactment of the Free Homestead Law, taking effect January 1, 1863; the beginning of construction upon the Union Pacific Railway in 1865; the fierce war with the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians on the plains which broke out in August, 1864; the passage of the Enabling Act by Congress on April 19, 1864, permitting Nebraska to become a state and the fight over statehood between the Republican and Democratic Parties centering in the election of June 2, 1866, in which victory was won for statehood by the close vote of 3,938 for to 3,838 against. From Admission as a State March 1, 1867, to the Adoption of the Constitution of 1875, November 1, 1875.--This is the formative period of the new state. Among its principal events were the relocation of the capital at Lincoln, July 29, 1867, the establishment of the State University and Agricultural College February 15, 1869, the impeachment of Governor David Butler in 1871, the first period of railway construction, including the completion of the Pacific Railroad to the ocean and the entrance of the Burlington and Northwestern Railroads into the region, the hard times and grasshopper period beginning in 1873, and the first wave of homesteading immigrants who settled most of the desirable land in the eastern half of the state and sent adventurous pioneers into the remotest parts.
From the Adoption of the Constitution in 1875 to the Farmers Alliance and Populist Revolution in 1890.--This period is marked by settlement in all parts of the state except in a few million acres of sand hills and in the extreme western panhandle region where settlement was just getting underway; by a rising demand for railroad regulation and political conflicts with railroad companies; by the removal of the Sioux, Pawnee, Ponca and Oto Indians from their old Nebraska homes to new locations in Oklahoma and South Dakota; by continuing conflicts between the grangers and cattlemen for possession of the land in western Nebraska; by the beginning of the world-wide struggle between organized capital and organized wage-earners exemplified by strikes in the City of Omaha in 1882 and the great Burlington strike of 1888; and finally by the organization of the Populist Party-its entrance into the political field, and first victory in the election of 1890.
From 1890 to the Present Time.--The past seventy-six years of Nebraska history have seen greater changes than any earlier period. The years between 1891 and 1897 were years of drouth and depression so severe that state aid was extended to the stricken regions. In the years 1897
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to 1930 Nebraska reached its peak of population. New crops were developed, winter wheat; alfalfa and sugar beets, which with irrigation, new methods of soil culture, the motorization of farm machinery, the development of the livestock industry and the establishment of the Omaha stockyards contributed to make Nebraska one of the great agricultural states.
Much progressive legislation was enacted in this seventy-six year period, legislation providing for the adoption of the Australian ballot, the direct primary, the initiative and referendum, the civil administrative code, which reorganized the state administrative system and the constitutional amendment which established the Unicameral Legislature. The educational system was greatly expanded, high school education was made available to all pupils and a public ownership of textbooks law was adopted. A state highway system was built from money raised by the enactment of a gasoline tax law and federal aid.
The years between 1930 and 1938 were marked by the devastating effects of a national depression coupled with a series of drouth years. The depression brought low prices for farm produce, bank failures, and failures of small businesses. The drouth in 1931, 1934, 1936 and 1938 brought short crops and in places complete failure of crops. Federal aid and relief activities helped and the state enacted social security legislation and imposed new liquor and head taxes, and additional gasoline taxes to furnish funds for state assistance. The drouth had other effects. Nebraska lost four and five-tenths per cent of its population and tenant farming which had been increasing since 1925 reached the fifty-two and seven-tenths per cent mark.
Nebraska in World War 1.--On April 6, 1917, the Congress of the United States declared that a state of war existed between this country and Germany. Nebraska furnished 47,801 men for the war. For the various war causes, the purchase of United States bonds, the Red Cross and others, Nebraska furnished nearly $300,000,000. About one thousand Nebraska soldiers died in the service and her men fought in all the great battles of Europe in which American troops participated and served on ships in every part of the world. The largest contribution Nebraska made to the war was, perhaps, the food supply. The surplus food which supplied the allies and the American soldiers was produced in no small measure by Nebraska and surrounding states. Nebraska furnished Base Hospital 49, consisting of 400 men and women stationed at Allerey, France. This hospital cared for many thousands of badly wounded soldiers during the last campaign of the war.
Nebraska Capitals and Capitols.--The capital of Nebraska Territory was first located at Bellevue but was soon moved to the rapidly growing new town of Omaha. Here in 1855 the first capitol was erected at a cost of $3,000. It was a two-story brick building, but quite inadequate and was superseded in 1857-58 by a new building financed in part by the federal government ($50,000) and in part by the City of Omaha ($60,000). Growing agitation for the removal of the capital south of the Platte led
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to the passage of the Removal Act in 1867 which transferred the seat of government from Omaha to Lincoln and provided for the erection of a new capitol. This capitol was erected at a cost of $75,817.50 which amount was derived from the sale of lots in Lincoln. The building was so poorly constructed that it started to show signs of decay within four years. The need of another building led to successive attempts to remove the capital farther west and north of the Platte but these attempts failed and the Legislature in 1870 appropriated funds for the construction of a west wing of a new capitol. Succeeding Legislatures appropriated funds and the east and central portions of the building were completed in 1888 at a cost of $691,428.80. By the turn of the century there was some agitation for a new capitol but it was not until 1919 when the deterioration of the old building had progressed so far that repairs were impracticable that the Legislature made provisions for the present building. Construction of this building was begun in April 1922, and completed in 1932. See page 1 for additional information on the present Capitol.
Nebraska in World War I.--During the war Nebraska furnished some 128,000 men and women to the armed forces of the United States, under the Selective Service Law of September, 1940. Of this number 3,655 died in the service. Inductions into the armed forces under the Selective Service Law continued after the close of the war. A civilian defense program was organized in 1941 under the direction of the Nebraska Advisory Defense Committee. War bond purchases by individuals totaled $1,152,066,922 while the banks of the state held on December 31, 1945, $187,591,559 worth of bonds. Contributions to the National War Funds and the Red Cross amounted to $8,116,651. War plants in the state produced major war supplies in the amount of $1,269,605,000 to June, 1945. A great part of Nebraska's contribution to the war effort was to the food supply. In the five crop seasons after the declaration of a war emergency in the spring of 1941, Nebraska farmers grew 1,229,000,000 bushels of corn, 289 million bushels of wheat, 294 million bushels of oats, 54,506,000 bushels of potatoes and 3,636,000 tons of sugar beets. Livestock production was also increased. Over 16 million hogs were marketed, and nearly 7 million cattle and 6 million sheep were marketed in the same period.
Nebraska Since World War I.--The end of World War II ushered in a period of prosperity in Nebraska. Crop yields and livestock production were at a high level, as were the prices received for them. Drouth conditions in 1954-55, however, reversed this rising spiral of prosperity somewhat. A drop in livestock prices was another contributing factor. Nebraska has tended to benefit from the national trend toward the decentralization of industry. The state has been active, through a division of resources, in the promotion of industrial development adaptable to its agricultural economy. The post war years also have seen Nebraska taking part in the greatest undertaking of its history -a comprehensive flood control, navigation, irrigation, power, and soil conservation program being shaped up for the far-flung Missouri River
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Basin. Nebraska, the only state lying wholly within the Basin, stands to gain untold benefits. The years brought reminders, however, that man has not won his battle over nature on the plains. The winter of 1948-49 brought probably the greatest blizzard in the history of the state, making it necessary for the 5th Army to come to the assistance of beleaguered farms, ranches, and villages. The loss attributed to the blizzard was estimated at $42,157,520 with the $16,370,750 loss in cattle being the largest single loss. Floods continued to hinder agricultural work in the eastern section of the state, and in April, 1952, the Missouri River erupted into the most disastrous flood in the history of white occupation of the plains area.
The Legislature in 1953 directed the Governor to appoint a Territorial Centennial Commission to assist the people in Nebraska in celebrating the centennial of the organization of Nebraska Territory in 1954. Governor Crosby appointed a commission of fourteen, headed by James E. Lawrence of Lincoln, chairman. No appropriation was provided for the work of the commission. To carry out its activities, the commission received a total of $4,681.00 in gifts from Nebraska firms and individuals. In addition, the railroads of Nebraska made available a traveling museum. This traveling exhibit, transported by the railroads, was viewed by 107,316 Nebraskans during the summer of 1954. The commission encouraged various local communities of the state to observe the centennial. Outstanding centennial observances were held in Nebraska City, Omaha, Plattsmouth and Tekamah. Many groups throughout the state held centennial programs in observance of the occasion.
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