The course of U.S. history was forever changed some 160 years ago, when steel tracks were laid alongside the routes of cattle trails and wagon trains. There was no stopping the waves of settlers eager to claim land or explore opportunities in the West, and rail was a necessity for the booming cattle trade. The western railroads helped realize the American dream, reshaping the country’s landscape and building a foundation for a new economy.
Pawnee Nation
The Pawnee Nation consists of four confederated bands: the Kitkahahki, Chaui, Skidi, and Pitahawirata. Pawnee history on the central Plains dates back more than 700 years.
George Day
George Day (August 5, 1917 to August 8, 2008) was born in the Day family home on Cherry Street (now Sumner) in Lincoln, Nebraska. His parents, Warren and Edith Day, moved to 4300 South Street. in 1922. As a boy growing up on this acreage at the edge of the city, George could see the State Capitol tower rising to the sky atop the foundations dug by Martin-Day Construction, the earth-moving company in which his father was a partner.
George and Cecile Meyer Frampton
Both George A. Frampton and Cecile Meyer Frampton were born in Nebraska and both to families whose primary vocation was farming. George’s family moved to Oklahoma when he was six to participate in the last land rush in Comanche County to prove up on 160 acres of land. This land stayed in the family through his sister Ida who married Art Runyan. They became successful farmers adding many more quarter sections to the original homestead.
Glenn H. Korff
Glenn H. Korff (1943-2013) was born on May 29, 1943, a fourth generation Nebraskan, the son of Paul W. and Esther L. Korff of Hebron, Nebraska. His father had planned on going into finance, but the Great Depression brought him back to his hometown where he eventually took over the family’s lumber business.
Nebraska’s Capital City is named after Abraham Lincoln
President Andrew Johnson signed the act making Nebraska a state on March 1, 1867. This set off a fierce struggle over the location of the new state’s Capitol. Since 1854, those residents living south of the Platte River had complained of lack of representation when Nebraska’s territorial capitol building had been located in Omaha.
William Frederick Cody
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846-1914) was born in Scott County, Iowa, in 1846 and grew up on the prairie. When his father died in 1857, his mother moved to Kansas where Cody worked for a wagon-freight company as a mounted messenger and wrangler. In 1859, he tried his luck as a prospector in the Pikes Peak gold rush, and the next year, joined the Pony Express.
Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska
The history of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska actually goes back thousands of years to the area that is today known as the state of Wisconsin. Although their homeland lay between Green Bay and Lake Winnebago in northeast Wisconsin, they roamed the area between Upper Michigan and present-day Milwaukee extending west to the Mississippi River.