A single willow tree on the banks of Antelope Creek served as a landmark along the Gordon Trail for settlers, fur traders, and Native Americans. In 1885, Reverend John Scamahorn and 104 settlers from Indiana set up camp at the Lone Willow. Later…

During World War II the Japanese built some nine thousand hydrogen-filled, paper balloons to carry small bombs to North America, hoping to set fires and inflict casualties. The first was launched November 3, 1944. The balloons rose to about 30,000…

The city of Rushville began as a settlement called Rush Valley, two miles north of its present location, in 1884. Buffalo grass pastures west of the Sandhills provided good grazing, but were too short for hay. The natural meadows along Rush Creek…

About ten miles north are the sites of Spotted Tail Agency and Camp Sheridan. Named for Brule Sioux Chief Spotted Tail, the agency was built in 1874 to supply treaty payments, including food, clothing, weapons, and utensils, under the terms of the…

Twenty miles northeast of here is Spade Ranch headquarters, a National Register of Historic Places site. In Ellsworth are the business offices (built c. 1890) and home (built 1902) of cattleman Bartlett Richards (1862-1911), a Vermont native.…

For a few years, the Antioch vicinity was one of the most important potash-producing regions in the nation. Antioch grew from a small village to a town of about 2,000. When the First World War broke out, the United States was cut off from European…

This is the country of Mari Sandoz--historian, novelist, teacher--who brought its history and its people to life in her many books, articles and stories. She was born in Sheridan County, Nebraska. Although she lived much of her life in the East, she…