Nebraska Pioneers

Halsey National Forest Campground, Dunning, NE

Ned here again. Our main outing for today was the Stuhr Museum in Grand Island, Nebraska. This is principally a living history town, set in 1894 Nebraska. We've been to two outstanding ones (Shearbrook and Upper Canada Village) on this trip, so we knew that those might be hard acts to follow. The first thing we noticed on arriving is the enormous scale of the place. The main reception building, which is surrounded by a huge moat(!) was being remodeled, so we didn't get to hear the introductory video narrated by Henry Fonda. Turns out he was born near here, and one of the houses in the "Railroad Town" is the one he was born in (and later moved to this location). We were shown a map which showed the grand scale of this place, and we asked if we could ride our bikes around it, and much to our surprise we were told that would be a great idea.

On of our favorite places in Railroad Town was the Stolley house, where this very sweet woman was drying apples and making apple butter, with the help of her granddaughter. The woman working in the Millinery was also very nice and helpful in explaining the finer points of women's hat making. We walked into the hardware store and thought a sitting mannequin had been set up behind the main table. When Debi snapped a photo, her flash woke him up from his nap, and he immediately welcomed us to the hardware store! While there, Debi sat down and pretended to puzzle over a game of checkers.

The veterinary clinic was interesting, but really creepy. We visited the doctor's house, and were most fascinated by the posted Bill of Fees. (The cost of an abortion was listed as $5-$20. Treatment of syphilis: $20 upward. Amputation of an arm: $25-$50. While circumcision would run you $10-$30!) When we got to the flour mill, we realized we were really spoiled. The mill we had visited in Upper Canada Village was fully operational, having just finished producing 900 pounds of flour as we arrived there. This Nebraska mill actually had quite a few more sophisticated pieces of equipment set up, but because nothing is ever actually made there, the learning experience doesn't seem nearly as vivid. Another area of the grounds had a Pawnee Earth Lodge, which was interesting because it felt surprisingly open and light inside. I expected it to smell like mold and dirt. Our last stop on the grounds was their antique farm machinery building. My favorite there was a huge old Farmall tractor with cleated steel wheels. I wished our Uncle Bud had been with us for this part of the tour. He would have spent hours in this place.

We then headed out along the Sandhills Scenic Byway. This is a beautiful area, described as "one of the largest grass-stabilized dune systems in the world." This road parallels the railroad tracks the entire way, and we were amazed at the number of trains fully loaded with coal which we passed. I counted the cars on one train and got 140. We saw at least six of those trains as we drove to our campground for tonight at Halsey National Forest. We also found out last night that these trains run all night. I'm seriously considering wearing earplugs tonight. Those engineers are extremely compliant about blowing their horns at every crossing, day or night.

This campground is part of the country's largest hand-planted forest. This results from the dream of a Professor of Botany from University of Nebraska in the early 1900's to plant a forest in the sandy soils of this area to protect it from further erosion. Riding our bikes around the campground tonight we were impressed to see dozens of trees labelled with their species names. Tomorrow we head further west in the Sandhills.