Nebraska, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.© David Muench/Corbisconstituent state of the United States of America. It was admitted to the union as the 37th state on March 1, 1867. Nebraska is bounded by the state of South Dakota to the north, with the Missouri River making up about one-fourth of that boundary and the whole of Nebraska’s boundaries with the states of Iowa and Missouri to the east. The boundary with Kansas to the south was established when the two territories were created by the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. In the southwestern part of the state, the boundary with Colorado forms a right angle (south and west), which creates Nebraska’s panhandle, to the west of which is the boundary with Wyoming. Lincoln, in the southeastern part of the state, is the capital.
As one of the west-central states of the United States, Nebraska was primarily a stopover point for those migrating to the rich trapping country to the north and west as well as to the settlement and mining frontiers of the mountain and Pacific regions during the first half of the 19th century. With the development of railroads after the American Civil War (1861–65) and the consequent immigration, the fertile soils of Nebraska were plowed, and its grasslands gave rise to a range cattle industry. As a result, the state has been a major food producer since statehood.
Rivers have been important to Nebraska’s geography and settlement. A majority of Nebraskans live close to the Missouri and Platte rivers, leaving much of the state lightly populated. The Missouri was a major highway to the trans-Mississippi West in the early 19th century. The Platte River has also played a significant role in Nebraska’s history. In fact, the state’s name is derived from the Oto Indian word Nebrathka (“Flat Water”), a reference to the Platte. Area 77,349 square miles (200,333 square km). Population (2010) 1,826,341; (2012 est.) 1,855,525.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Nebraska comprises parts of two of the United States’ principal physiographic regions—the till plains of the Central Lowland (in the eastern third of the state) and the Great Plains (which makes up the centre of the state).
The Sand Hills region of north-central and northwestern Nebraska is one of the state’s most distinctive features. Comprising nearly one-fourth of the area of the state, it consists of sloping hills and valleys varying from 25 to 400 feet (8 to 120 metres) in elevation. With many small lakes and luxuriant grasses, the Sand Hills area is a superb rangeland.
Elevation in Nebraska rises from a minimum of 840 feet (256 metres) above sea level in the southeast to a maximum of 5,426 feet (1,654 metres) near the Colorado and Wyoming boundaries. Much of the land is gently rolling prairie, although the river valleys, much of south-central Nebraska, and a large portion of the panhandle district are flatlands.
Nebraska lies within the Missouri River drainage system; the Platte, the major Nebraska tributary, joins the Missouri south of Omaha. Although shallow and unnavigable, the Platte is vital to the state’s irrigation. The river is formed by the confluence of the North and South Platte rivers, both of which rise in Colorado to the southwest, although the North Platte swings northward through Wyoming, to the west, before entering Nebraska. The Elkhorn River enters the Platte west of Omaha, and the Loup River, formed by three tributaries flowing out of the Sand Hills, also discharges into the Platte. The Republican and Big Blue rivers flow through southern Nebraska, emptying into the Missouri in Kansas via the Kansas River. The Niobrara, a swift-moving stream that rises in the high country just west of the Wyoming border, flows across extreme northern Nebraska. The Ogallala Aquifer, a huge supply of underground water that made possible the extensive development of well irrigation, lies beneath most of Nebraska.
Nebraska’s soils are excellent for agriculture. The prairie soils of the southeast and the humus soils of central and northeastern Nebraska are important. South of the Platte and west of the prairie soil area, the soil is best suited to small-grain production. Winter wheat adapts to the soil and marginal precipitation of western Nebraska. The wind-deposited soil of the Sand Hills, because of limited precipitation and the danger of erosion, is suited solely to cattle grazing. The alluvial soils of the Missouri and Platte river valleys and the valleys of smaller streams are outstanding for raising corn (maize) and other crops.
Nebraska’s climate, like that of the larger Great Plains region, is subject to extremes in temperature, wind speeds, and precipitation. Likewise, there are significant climatic variations from eastern Nebraska to the central and westernmost regions. Hot winds from the southwest often push summer temperatures in Nebraska into the 90s F (about 32 °C) and sometimes above 100 °F (38 °C). Average July temperatures range from the mid-70s F (about 23 °C) in the panhandle to the upper 70s F (about 26 °C) in the southeast. In the winter, northwestern winds often bring in Arctic air masses from Canada, and temperatures commonly fall well below 0 °F (about −18 °C). Low-pressure systems moving out of the southwestern states sometimes bring great blizzards to Nebraska. Average January temperatures vary from the mid-20s F (about −4 °C) in the panhandle to about 20 °F (−7 °C) in the northeast. The average growing season is about 170 days in the southeast and 130 days in the panhandle.
The average annual precipitation varies from more than 30 inches (750 mm) in the southeast to less than 16 inches (400 mm) in the extreme west. Since a minimum of 20 inches (500 mm) is usually considered necessary for normal crop production, about one-half of Nebraska may be considered semiarid.
Milt and Joan Mann from CameraMannNebraska was the first state in the country to celebrate Arbor Day—in 1872, when Nebraskan politician J. Sterling Morton advocated a tree-planting day to beautify the state’s largely treeless landscape. A wide variety of prairies originally covered Nebraska; now the slopes of the river valleys are well covered with deciduous trees. Cottonwood, elm, and some oak and walnut are found along the bluffs of eastern Nebraska, while conifers grow in the Wild Cat and Pine Ridge highlands and the Niobrara valley. The Nebraska National Forest in west-central Nebraska resulted from a human effort to plant trees on the barren plains.
Layne Kennedy/CorbisBison had roamed widely over the Nebraska plains until their near extermination at the time of settlement in 1854. Some of these animals remain in their natural habitat on the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, near Valentine. Antelope and deer are also native to the state, as are prairie dogs, coyotes, jackrabbits, skunks, and squirrels. Migratory birds and pheasants are common.
Centuries before European explorers arrived in Nebraska, Native Americans had been living in the area. With the opening of the territory to settlement in 1854, the federal government created a reservation for the Omaha people in northeastern Nebraska, part of which subsequently was made into a reservation for Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) people who had been displaced from Wisconsin. Some of Minnesota’s Santee Sioux were forced to move to a reservation in northeastern Nebraska. (The Omaha–Ho-Chunk and the Santee Sioux reservations still exist.) In addition the Iowa and the Sauk and Fox each have a reservation in the extreme southeastern corner of the state. By the beginning of the 21st century, about 1 percent of the state population was made up of Native Americans, some one-third of whom lived in Omaha and Lincoln.
In addition to the white settlers from the eastern United States who came to Nebraska, large numbers of European immigrants settled in the state during the late 19th century. The largest immigrant group was the Germans, who in 1890 numbered 72,000; immigrants from the Scandinavian countries (particularly Sweden), Bohemia, and the British Isles and another, distinct group of Germans, who had first migrated to Russia before immigrating to the United States, also made important contributions to the settlement of Nebraska.
Large numbers of Roman Catholics from Bohemia, Germany, and Ireland; Lutherans from Germany and Scandinavia; and Mennonites among the German-Russian immigrants gave diversity to the religious and secular life of Nebraska. Although the linguistic identity of the non-English-speaking groups has faded with each generation, other aspects of their diverse cultural heritage have survived.
African Americans moved to Nebraska early in the history of the state. While a significant number of them settled in Brownville, Lincoln, and Hastings, others helped form homesteading communities in the Sand Hills. Most settled in Omaha, however, which by 1900 had an African American population of more than 3,400, a figure that by the late 20th century had increased more than 10-fold. This community was concentrated north of downtown Omaha in an area that increasingly became characterized by the social and economic problems common to the ghettos of other large cities. This core of the community declined markedly in population, however, as many African Americans moved to adjacent neighbourhoods. Members of Omaha’s African American community have long been represented in the state legislature; the first African American served in the legislature in 1892.
At the end of the 20th century, Nebraska experienced a new wave of immigration that consisted of Hispanics mostly from Mexico and of Asians from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Many were recruited for or attracted by job opportunities provided by the meatpacking plants in Lexington, Dakota City, and Omaha. These groups together made up about one-tenth of the total population in the early 21st century.
In 1857, in accordance with federal law, the land was surveyed into townships of about 6 square miles (16 square km) containing 36 sections comprising 640 acres (259 hectares) each. (This gridlike survey system has remained a basic feature of Nebraska’s landscape.) Most of the towns and villages were built close to rivers and streams. A number of them developed as railroad terminals, but changing patterns of transportation brought growth for some communities and stagnation or oblivion for many others.
Jupiterimages CorporationThe most striking trend in settlement since the 1970s has been the steady decline of the population of the rural areas and the marked growth of the cities and their suburbs. Urban growth was stimulated by the mechanization of agriculture, which brought about the working of more land by fewer persons, decreases in the number of farms, and increases in average farm size. Similarly, most small towns, reliant upon the local farm trade, continued to lose population, a condition undoubtedly hastened by a modern highway system that enlarged the trade areas of the cities.
From 1990 to 2000 the growth rate of Nebraska’s Hispanic population was about 20 times that of the rest of the state’s population and about three times the national growth rate. (In the early 21st century the median age of Hispanics was about 24, while that of all Nebraskans was about 36.) In general, the number of immigrants entering Nebraska has been offset by out-migration (relocating to another state).
Nebraska’s economic development depends heavily on outside investment. The state Department of Economic Development was established in 1967 to bring new industry to Nebraska. In addition, a state law passed in 1987 provided tax incentives for the development of business and industry. Services, manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture are the major sources of income.
Although Nebraska is one of the country’s leading agricultural producers, only one-tenth of the state’s labour force is employed in agriculture. Nebraska’s farm population peaked in the mid-1930s and has been steadily declining. In 1934 the state had about 135,000 farms. In 1965 that number had dropped to 82,000, and by the early 21st century there were fewer than 50,000 farms in the state. At the same time, the average size of farms in Nebraska increased from 588 acres (238 hectares) in 1965 to 930 acres (376 hectares) in 2002.
© George Burba/Shutterstock.comFrom the state’s earliest days, corn (maize) has been its top cash crop—hence Nebraska’s nickname, the Cornhusker State—but sorghum, soybeans, hay, wheat, and dry beans are also important. Nebraska is the country’s top producer of alfalfa (lucerne) and Great Northern beans and also ranks high among the states in the production of sugar beets and potatoes. Irrigation is used extensively in eastern and central Nebraska and is essential to certain types of agriculture in the western part of the state. The introduction of centre-pivot sprinkler systems in the 1970s constituted a fundamental change in the history of Nebraska agriculture because it made possible the cultivation of land that previously could not be irrigated. The impact of centre-pivot irrigation is evident in the circular pattern now overlaid on much of the traditional checkerboard landscape.
© Amy Leigh Tjaden/Shutterstock.comIn livestock production Nebraska is among the top states in the number of cattle slaughtered. It is also a major producer of pork and is important in the production of poultry and sheep.
Crude petroleum accounts for more than half of the value of the state’s mineral extraction. Nebraska also produces some natural gas, as well as significant amounts of cement, lime, sand, gravel, crushed stone, and clay. Additional quantities of natural gas, however, are imported to serve the commercial, industrial, and residential needs of the state. All electrical utilities are publicly owned, and consumer rates are among the lowest in the country.
© Tamy Nichole Thomason/Shutterstock.com© Weldon Schloneger/Shutterstock.comAbout two-thirds of Nebraska’s electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants. Slightly less than one-third is produced by nuclear power plants, and a slim percentage comes from hydroelectric plants on the Missouri and Platte rivers and at Kingsley Dam on Lake McConaughy in western Nebraska. Nebraska ranks as one of the top states in the production of corn-based ethanol and has more than 20 ethanol plants across the state. The state has experimented with biomass to produce electricity, but the lower costs of producing electricity at its coal-fired and nuclear plants have impeded these initiatives. Significant progress in the use of wind energy had been stalled until the early 21st century because the windiest areas are in the north-central and southern panhandle regions, where there are fewer transmission lines to carry electricity generated by wind turbines. The Elkhorn Ridge wind farm, near the town of Bloomfield in northeastern Nebraska, is the largest wind-energy project in the state.
Although employment opportunities in rural Nebraska diminished in the last part of the 20th century (as it had in rural areas of other states), there has been an increase in the number of work opportunities in manufacturing, notably in the Platte valley, with its excellent highway transportation, as well as in the state’s major cities. Food processing is the most important industrial activity of the state. Other leading industrial activities include the manufacture of machinery and chemicals and allied products, printing and publishing, and the production of primary and fabricated metals and electrical, electronic, and transportation equipment.
© Weldon Schloneger/Shutterstock.comMilt and Joan Mann from CameraMann© Chad Bontrager/Shutterstock.comNebraska, and Omaha in particular, is known as a major centre of the American insurance industry. Tourism is also essential to the livelihood of the state and ranks third behind agriculture and manufacturing in economic significance. Many of Nebraska’s roads follow parts of the historic Oregon Trail, over which countless pioneers’ wagons passed. The best-known landmark on the trail and one of Nebraska’s principal tourist sites is Chimney Rock, a 325-foot (100-metre) promontory that is thought to be about 28 million years old. Another important tourist destination is Scott’s Bluff National Monument, the focus of which is the land formation that rises some 800 feet (240 metres) above the North Platte River. A rather unconventional attraction is Carhenge, a re-creation of England’s Stonehenge but made out of cars, which lies on the western Nebraska plains near the town of Alliance.
The state generally has been conservative in labour matters and ranks low nationally in the percentage of unionized nonagricultural workers. Nebraska has a right-to-work law that forbids compulsory union membership.
Jupiterimages CorporationNebraska is located on some of the most important arteries linking east and west. Within the state, traffic in the east tends to flow toward Omaha, Lincoln, and Sioux City, Iowa, as well as toward the cities in the Platte valley. Much of western Iowa lies within the trading area of metropolitan Omaha.
Several railroads also operate in the state, and both Omaha and Lincoln are served by major rail lines. Omaha is an important port for commercial barge traffic on the Missouri. Air carriers serving Nebraska include both major national lines and those that provide feeder service to the smaller communities of the state. Eppley Airfield in Omaha is one of the country’s largest airports and the largest in Nebraska. It offers nonstop flights to many domestic cities.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Philip Gould/CorbisNebraska functions under a frequently amended constitution dating from 1875. Nebraska’s legislature is unique in two ways: it is the only unicameral legislature in the country, and it is not based on party affiliation. Since 1937, following a referendum passed by voters in 1934, it has been a nonpartisan single-house system known as the Nebraska Unicameral. The 49 members, known as senators, are popularly elected to four-year terms following primary and runoff elections in their districts, which are proportioned equally by population. The legislature meets for sessions of 90 legislative days in odd-numbered years and 60 days in even-numbered years. The nonpartisan feature of the legislature has many critics, who charge that the lack of political parties in the legislature results in a lack of leadership in that body. Indeed, nonpartisanship may have enhanced the importance of lobbyists in the legislative process.
Nebraska’s chief executive officer is the governor, who—along with the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor of public accounts, treasurer, and attorney general—is elected to a four-year term on a partisan ballot. The governor and treasurer are limited to two consecutive terms; there are no term limits for the other executive officers. The governor is responsible for the operation of some administrative departments and is an ex officio member of various boards and commissions. The governor must present a detailed budget to the state legislature, which needs an affirmative three-fifths vote to appropriate more funds than recommended by the governor or to override a gubernatorial veto. Other elected state officers also run on partisan ballots.
© Cheryl A. Meyer/Shutterstock.comNebraska’s court system, reorganized in 1972, comprises the Supreme Court, with seven justices, and district courts. In addition, there are conciliation courts, county courts, municipal courts in Omaha and Lincoln, and juvenile courts, as well as a Workers’ Compensation Court. Nebraska has adopted the merit system for selecting judges. Judicial nominating commissions, chosen by the governor and the Nebraska State Bar Association, compose lists of nominees to fill vacancies on the bench. The governor then appoints one of the nominees to fill a particular position. After three years, judges run for retention on a nonpartisan ballot in a general election, and they must run in similar elections every six years thereafter.
County government is vested in boards of supervisors or commissioners of three to seven members, who, like other county officials, are elected on partisan ballots. The city manager and mayor-council forms of government are used in Nebraska’s cities, and governmental authority in villages is vested in elective boards of trustees.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Nebraska Territory was the creation of a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C., and Democrats dominated Nebraskan politics until 1860. The following 30 years were marked by Republican preeminence in the state, but the political ferment during and after the 1890s brought not just an end to one-party rule but the ascent of the state’s most famous politician, populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. presidency three times (1896, 1900, and 1908). Another of the state’s most influential politicians was Sen. George W. Norris, a Republican reformer who played a key role in the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Although a slight majority of Nebraska’s voters are registered Republicans, Democrats have often been elected to the governorship and to serve in Congress. Since the mid-19th century, Nebraska has been a stronghold for the Republican Party in presidential elections.
Nebraska’s programs of public assistance include medical aid and financial assistance for dependent children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Federal funding provides more than half of Nebraska’s public assistance expenditures. In 1996 the public assistance agencies of the state were reorganized into three separate Health and Human Services agencies.
The state maintains a system of mental hospitals and other specialized health, correctional, and care facilities. Omaha ranks as a medical centre of national significance. Boys Town, a village for homeless children, is 10 miles (16 km) west of Omaha.
Since the 1960s, state aid to local governments for education has increased greatly, and the number of school districts has been cut drastically in order to make more efficient use of educational facilities and programs.
There are more than 30 institutions of higher education in Nebraska; about one-half are private schools, and the rest are state-operated four-year colleges and publicly supported technical community (junior) colleges. The University of Nebraska (established in 1869) is the largest educational institution in the state and is composed of four campuses—the original and main campus in Lincoln, campuses in Kearney and Omaha, and the medical school, with facilities in Omaha and Lincoln. The University of Nebraska and Creighton University, a private Catholic institution in Omaha, both have schools of medicine, law, and dentistry. Other prominent private institutions include Hastings College (in Hastings), Concordia University (in Seward), and Nebraska Wesleyan University (in Lincoln); there are also state colleges in Chadron, Peru, and Wayne.
In less than two generations Nebraska was converted from a wilderness inhabited by a small number of Native Americans to a settlement of more than one million residents. This conquest was an important achievement of the 19th century, and many of Nebraska’s cultural contributions are centred on this frontier experience.
Nebraska’s Native Americans share lively powwow celebrations. The Ho-Chunk hold annual powwows in July, and the Omaha host a harvest powwow on the first full moon in August. Various folk observances, such as the Czech Festival at Wilber, are reminders of the diverse origins of the people of Nebraska. Ogallala, a cow town during the 1870s and ’80s, relives its colourful past with its Front Street festivities held each summer. Each October the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben (Nebraska spelled in reverse), an Omaha civic organization founded in 1895, crown a king and a queen of Quivira. This event commemorates the search through the plains in 1541 of the Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado for the legendary Seven Golden Cities of Cibola and the Kingdom of Quivira.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Noted Nebraskan authors Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz, and Bess Streeter Aldrich were among those who wrote perceptively of life on the plains. The survival of the pioneers in a capricious physical environment, the lifestyles and interaction of settlers of diverse social and ethnic backgrounds, and the plight of the Native Americans were among the important themes of these writers. Poet Ted Kooser attended and taught at the University of Nebraska, and his writings reflect Midwestern rural life; he received a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for one of his poetry collections. The philosophies of L. Ron Hubbard of Tilden, the founder of Scientology, are known worldwide through his writings. The poet John G. Neihardt re-created the adventures of the explorers of the 19th-century West. In the early 1970s his narrative Black Elk Speaks achieved national recognition some 40 years after its original publication. Other famous Nebraskans include actors Marlon Brando and Henry Fonda, dancer Fred Astaire, singer-songwriter Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes), and television talk-show host Dick Cavett. Comedian Johnny Carson, longtime host of The Tonight Show, was a native of Iowa but spent his childhood in Nebraska, attended the University of Nebraska, and began his entertainment career in the state.
The Nebraska State Historical Society, organized in 1878, continues to make important contributions to an understanding of life in Nebraska and the West. The American Historical Society of Germans from Russia is located in Lincoln, reflecting the importance of this historic group to the state. The Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer has exhibits on 19th-century plains life as well as a collection of Native American artifacts. The Great Plains Black Museum in Omaha is one of the country’s largest centres of African American culture and history. A museum dedicated to Latino history and culture opened in Omaha in 1993. The Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History focuses on that city and its region, as well as on Great Plains life. Among its popular exhibits is one on the history of Kool-Aid, the internationally known soft-drink mix invented in Hastings in 1927. The International Quilt Study Center & Museum, dedicated in 2008 at the University of Nebraska, houses one of the world’s largest collection of quilts.
The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha and the University of Nebraska’s Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery in Lincoln contain the state’s major collections in the visual arts. The performing arts have flourished in Nebraska, both in the development of local musical, theatre, and dance groups and through performances by touring artists of national stature.
Few subjects are of greater interest to Nebraskans than the fortunes of the University of Nebraska’s sports teams, especially its gridiron football team, long a national power, which won back-to-back National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I championships in 1970–71 and 1994–95, along with another in 1997. (Tom Osborne, coach of the last three championship teams, parlayed his popularity into a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.) The University of Nebraska is a member of the Big 12 Conference, while Creighton University, which is better known for its basketball teams, participates in the Missouri Valley Conference. The NCAA has held the College World baseball championship in Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium since 1950. Among the state’s most famous athletes are football great Gale Sayers and Baseball Hall of Famers Grover Cleveland Alexander and Bob Gibson.
© Chad Bontrager/Shutterstock.comRecreational areas include several state parks, the Nebraska National Forest, and the Oglala National Grassland. Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo is one of the best in the country.
The state’s major newspapers are the Omaha World Herald and the Lincoln Journal Star. In 1960 the University of Nebraska Press launched the paperback Bison Series, reprints of early and modern works on the American West, including histories, collections of lore from Native American and Anglo settlers, and other important documents, many of which had been out of print. There are a variety of television and radio stations throughout the state.
Various prehistoric peoples inhabited Nebraska as early as 8000 bce. In the 19th century, semisedentary Native American peoples, most notably the Omaha, Oto, Pawnee, and Ponca, lived in eastern and central Nebraska. The west was the domain of the Brulé and Oglala Teton Sioux, but other tribes, such as the Arapaho, Comanche, and Cheyenne, also used the area from time to time. In the 1870s the Oto, Pawnee, and Ponca peoples, after being assigned to reservations in Nebraska, were removed to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). By 1878 several bands of the Teton Sioux (Lakota) had been relocated from northwestern Nebraska to reservations just over the border in Dakota Territory (now South Dakota).
At the end of the 1600s both France and Spain had claimed the area that would become Nebraska, but in 1763 Spain won title to the trans-Mississippi region, including Nebraska. Spanish efforts to develop Native American trade in the upper Missouri River region brought little success, and international politics led to the transfer of the region, again including Nebraska, to France in 1800. Three years later the United States acquired this vast area from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
In 1804 the Lewis and Clark Expedition visited the Nebraska side of the Missouri River and conducted the first systematic exploration of the area. Shortly thereafter a vigorous fur trade developed along the Missouri, but Nebraska was primarily a highway to richer fur-trapping areas to the north and west. During the 1840s the Platte valley became another major migration route as thousands of settlers moved westward to Oregon, California, and Utah over the path opened by the fur trade.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Much interest soon developed in Nebraska and in the Platte valley as a potential railroad route to the Pacific. Frontier land speculators in western Missouri and Iowa anticipated great financial gains if the Nebraska country, part of the large Native American domain between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, were opened for settlement. With the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and repealed the prohibition of slavery north of latitude 36°30’ that was established in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the federal government extended political organization to the trans-Missouri region. Originally the Nebraska Territory comprised 351,558 square miles (910,531 square km), but by 1863 the organization of the Colorado, Dakota, and Idaho (including the states of Montana and Wyoming) territories had reduced Nebraska almost to its present dimensions.
Economics, geography, and politics created sectional rivalries within Nebraska in 1854. The locating of the capital of Nebraska Territory in Omaha so enraged the people south of the Platte that they sought to be annexed by Kansas. In 1867 the state capital was moved to Lincoln, south of the Platte, riling political leaders from north of the river and Omaha. Both Lincoln and Omaha emerged as major regional hubs, but, because these cities are located at the eastern end of the state, western Nebraskans often turned their attention toward Denver, Colo.
Much of the economy of the early Nebraska settlements along the Missouri River was based on land speculation. The nationwide economic panic of 1857, however, forced many to experiment with agriculture, which soon thrived. Some river towns also became important transfer points for freight and passengers going west, leading to greater commercial development. The completion of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869 and the further railroad construction that followed also contributed to the development of the state.
After Nebraska’s admission to the union in 1867, and despite an economic depression and a grasshopper plague, the state’s population increased from about 120,000 to more than 1,000,000 by 1890. The Indian resistance on the frontier was broken during these years, and settlement extended westward into the panhandle. During the 1880s Omaha became an important industrial and meatpacking centre, and Lincoln became prominent as the state capital and as the seat of the University of Nebraska.
In the 1890s Nebraska’s farmers, afflicted with poor crop prices, high transportation costs, and economic depression, expressed their protest through the People’s Party (also known as the Populist Party). Although the Populist movement in Nebraska was relatively short-lived, it invigorated the political life of the state, and its champion, William Jennings Bryan, became a national figure and three-time presidential candidate. Hopes were further lifted when Omaha was selected as the site to host the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898, an event that was meant to revive the country’s economy and alleviate the financial panic of the 1890s. The exposition attracted more than two million people to Omaha over a four-month period. Prosperity returned by 1900 and continued for two decades.
In the 1920s, however, Nebraska’s agriculture was again impacted by a nationwide depression, which was in part responsible for the failure of about two-fifths of the state-chartered banks from 1921 through 1930. With the advent of the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s, the state’s economy deteriorated further, necessitating massive federal assistance. Moreover, certain counties in southwestern Nebraska were affected by the Dust Bowl.
In 1933 the state legislature authorized the creation of public power and irrigation districts. Republican Sen. George W. Norris was influential in securing loans from the federal government that enabled these districts to construct hydroelectric and irrigation projects in the Platte and Loup river valleys. A public agency later purchased the private electric power companies outside the Omaha area, and in 1946 the Omaha Public Power District acquired the local private power company. Nebraska thus became the first state with complete public ownership of electrical generating and distribution facilities, an ironic fact in view of its reputation for political conservatism. Norris was also a major promoter of the idea of a unicameral legislature, which Nebraskan voters endorsed in 1934. The new legislature was implemented in 1937, and Nebraska became the first and only U.S. state to have a single legislative body.
World War II brought economic recovery and other changes. Fort Crook, south of Omaha, became the site of a huge aircraft plant. In 1948 this location, renamed Offutt Air Force Base, became the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (now U.S. Strategic Command), which stimulated the growth of the greater Omaha area.
In the years following World War II, the population of Nebraska began to shift from rural to urban communities. Suburban development also contributed to significant growth in the size of metropolitan areas in both area and population. Omaha spread from Douglas county into adjoining Sarpy county to the west and south, and Lincoln encompassed more of Lancaster county. Farms continued to decrease in number and increase in size.
The tapping of groundwater for irrigation also rose dramatically during the postwar years. The heavy utilization of groundwater plus the possibility that more water could be diverted from the upper reaches of the Platte system in Colorado and Wyoming made Nebraskans more sensitive to the need to conserve water resources. In addition, they became more aware of the danger of groundwater contamination by chemical fertilizers and related products.
The importance of water also led to conflict with Nebraska’s neighbouring states—most notably over the flows of the Missouri and Republican rivers—which periodically led to litigation. In 1986, for instance, Nebraska filed a suit in the U.S. Supreme Court against the state of Wyoming to stop the building of a new dam on the North Platte River. The suit was finally settled in 2001 in Nebraska’s favour. In another case, Nebraska went to court to stop South Dakota from diverting water from the Missouri River for use in a coal-slurry pipeline. In a separate litigation, the state of Kansas filed a suit in the U.S. Supreme Court against Nebraska in 1998 claiming that Kansas was not getting the water it was entitled to under a 1943 Republican River pact agreed to by Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado. The court ruled in favour of Kansas, and in 2007 the Nebraska legislature approved a bill to finance its water debt to Kansas through new sales and income taxes on farmers in the Republican River valley.
Urban growth and rising expectations for the provision of public services put increasing fiscal pressure on the state government, which sought to replenish its coffers primarily by raising property taxes starting in the late 1940s.Protests from Nebraska’s declining farm population, which felt it was bearing a disproportionate share of the tax burden, led to the adoption of a tax reform act in 1968 that implemented a system of income, sales, and property taxes. The combination of these three taxes meant that urban and rural residents would pay a more equitable share of taxes. Rejecting a call for a constitutional convention to address the rising costs of government, the Nebraska legislature began a process for streamlining state government by approving bonded indebtedness for major state projects and by attempting to attract new industries to broaden the tax base.
Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, minority groups in Nebraska demanded greater civil rights. In Omaha in the mid-1960s, the frustration felt by many African Americans occasionally took the form of violence and rioting, largely a result of the growing political militancy and strained police-community relations. In the wake of this struggle, an equal opportunities commission was created and a civil rights code was enacted that made discrimination in housing and employment illegal. Moreover, there was a significant increase in the profile of African Americans in government, and overt racial tensions eased in response to the establishment of jobs programs and growing sensitivity among white residents.
Violence against Native Americans in northwestern Nebraska across the border from the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations in South Dakota erupted in the 1970s. During this period, the grievances of Nebraska’s Native Americans were brought to light after the siege of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973 by members of the American Indian Movement. Some of the defendants were tried in a federal district court in Lincoln from 1974 to 1976 for their participation in the Wounded Knee occupation.
Also in the 1970s, rapid inflation and increasing oil prices threatened the prosperity of Nebraska’s farmers, as did the collapse of land values during a nationwide recession in the 1980s. As a result of these developments and because most of Nebraska’s industrial enterprises were tied to agricultural production, it became imperative to diversify the state’s economy. In 1987 the Nebraska legislature established tax incentives for the development of new businesses and industries and to encourage the expansion of existing industries. The benefits of these tax incentives continued to be debated throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century, even as economic diversification was achieved in Omaha (where oil refining and lead smelting, as well as the manufacture of railroad, telephone, and farm equipment became important) and other urban areas. An influx of Hispanics to Nebraska in the 1970s, followed by groups of Asian immigrants in the 1980s, further diversified the labour force.
Although the Nebraska economy has prospered, the state still wrestles with issues related to its dependence on agriculture while at the same time working toward greater diversity in industry, fairness of its tax system, and relief for property, sales, and income taxes. Consequently, the state government has increased its efforts to develop new markets for Nebraska’s agricultural exports. Also, in an attempt to prompt younger Nebraskans to become farmers, the legislature passed a bill providing income tax credits to anyone who rents agricultural land, buildings, or machinery to a novice farmer or rancher. The state has also continued to provide tax incentives for businesses in rural counties.