Nebraska Moments

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In thirty-nine vignettes Donald R. Hickey writes about Nebraska places, events, personalities, and institutions. His sense of history and eye for detail make vivid a long stretch of the Oregon Trail and Forts Kearny and Robinson, the rise of Omaha, the celebrated architecture of the Capitol Building, the world’s largest area of sand dunes and of planted forest, the High Plains Aquifer, and the establishment of Boys Town and Offutt Air Force Base. He also describes the brief tenure of the Pony Express, the consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the fight for the state capital and the workings of the nation’s only unicameral legislature, the trial of Standing Bear, the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, the blizzard of 1888, and agrarian protest.Essentially, <i>Nebraska Moments</i> is about people, famous and obscure, acting individually and collectively. Chapters are devoted to Chief Red Cloud; the immigrants and homesteaders; soldiers like Buffalo Bill Cody and General John J. Pershing; statesmen like William Jennings Bryan, Charles G. Dawes, and George W. Norris; and writers like Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz, John G. Neihardt, and Loren Eiseley. Their names define Nebraska as much as the varied landscape does.