Author Archives: Beth Goble

Today is the 100th anniversary of the March 30th, 1912 flood in Valley Nebraska.  This year we are experiencing  one of the warmest and driest months of March on record and drought is more to be feared than flooding.   But last year was a different story – mountain snowpack  and torrents of rain in Montana caused the Missouri River to flood.   The Valley flood a century ago is another reminder that March is indeed a lion and a lamb.  The winter of 1912 must have been much colder and longer than the one we have just experienced, because the large amount of ice still on the rivers formed  ice jams  and caused a very destructive flood.

Valley is located between the Platte  and the Elkhorn rivers.   The confluence of the two rivers is several miles south of the town.    This excerpt from the Norfolk weekly News-Journal, March 29, 1912, Page 8  describes conditions at Valley on Tuesday, March 26.

“A. T. Hutchinson of the A. L. Kulian Co. , returned last night from Valley , Neb. , where he attended a directors meeting of a seed house of which he is a director. Mr. Hutchinson reports that much fear is entertained at Valley and Waterloo over the flood stage of the Platte river which is thirty feet high at the narrowed channel at the Burlington  bridge at Fremont. The ice is thirty-six inches thick and a gorge is forming. Blasting has been going on for a week , but it is not believed that this will save the lowlands arount Valley from a flood. The Elkhorn river, says Mr. Hutchinson, is in good shape and he can see no danger of a flood in this vicinity.”

Valley Public Library has contributed a collection of photographs to Nebraska Memories depicting the town both before and after the flood.  This 1910 photo of  Reid’s Hotel  at the corner of Front and Pine streets shows a substantial two-story building flanked by trees and paved sidewalks.

Two years later, this March 30, 1912 photo   of the same  corner  shows that the flooding may have been even worse than Mr. Hutchinson’s comments to the newspaper suggested.     Water is lapping at the foot of the front porch of the hotel and several people are standing  on it surveying the flooded street.   There must have been a lot of damage to the ground floor of the hotel and all the buildings on those streets.   The photo description indicates that flood waters from the Platte and Elkhorn rivers merged and some areas were covered in four feet of muddy water.

This photo taken in April 1912 shows damage to a  wagon road    near the railroad tracks.   The road has eroded away and looks like a “gorge” such as Mr. Hutchinson told about.    As the flood waters recede,  undermined utility poles are falling  over.   The pole with the repair man perched on it  looks like it could topple into the water at any moment–not a place I would have wanted to be!    According to the photo description damages to the area were estimated at $40,000 – a hefty sum a century ago.

And how would you like to be the poor people living in these homes?  More photographs of the Valley flood of 1912  can be viewed in Nebraska Memories.

Visit Nebraska Memories to search for or browse through many more historical images digitized from photographs, negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials.

Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. NebraskaMemories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information, or contact Beth Goble, Government Information Services Director, or Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director.

November is Native American Heritage Month, and this week we are  highlighting a  collection of  photographs  taken by John Alvin  Anderson  .   The images were contributed to Nebraska Memories  by the Nebraska State  Historical Society, which scanned part of its collection of Anderson’s glass plate negatives.   John A. Anderson was born in Sweden in 1869 and brought to Pennsylvania with his family in 1870.   In 1883 he came to  Cherry County with his father and brothers.  He learned photography at an early age and took photographs of soldiers and natives living at Fort Niobrara and the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. In 1889 he was the official photographer for the Crook Treaty Council held by General George Crook with the Brule Sioux at the Rosebud Reservation.

  In  1895 Anderson married and moved to the Reservation with his wife, where he opened a store and continued to photograph the people living there. He was able to photograph several chiefs, including  this 1902 one of  Chief Two Strike , who was a member of a delegation to Washington, D.C.  after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.    He also took many photos of daily activities like cattle branding and butchering and of festivities like the Grass Dance  pictured at the top of this posting,  which is still danced today .

Setting aside a time   to honor Native Americans has been advocated for many years,  and some states  have done this.   Although an official national  holiday has never been enacted,  in 1990 Congress  passed a resolution designating November as National American Indian Heritage Month.  The designation has been renewed each year since 1994. The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum host the   Native American Heritage Month website  linking to collections, images, audio, video and teacher guides documenting native history and traditions.

Visit Nebraska Memories to search for or browse through many more historical images digitized from photographs, negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials.  Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. Nebraska Memories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information, or contact Beth Goble, Government Information Services Director, or Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director.

On September 20, 1904, Wilbur Wright flew the first complete circle in history by a manned heavier-than-air powered machine, flying the Wright brothers’ biplane  4,080 feet.  It wasn’t a quick circle, taking about a minute and a half.  This image from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection of  a page from  Wilbur’s logbook shows data and a diagram of the flight.

It wasn’t long before Nebraskans were soaring in those flying machines.  Dr. Frank A. Brewster   of Beaver City  was known as the Flying Doctor.  Dr. Brewster embraced new tools  to help him with his far-flung practice in western Nebraska and Kansas.    He began using a motorcycle in 1903 to make his rounds, and in 1905 got an automobile.  In 1919 he bought a biplane and hired World War I pilot Wade Stevens  to  fly him to his patients.  The duo is pictured on the left with the plane.  On May 23^rd 1919  he  flew to Herndon  Kansas  to perform surgery on an oilfield worker who had suffered a crushed skull in an accident – possibly the first time an airplane was used for commercial or humanitarian purposes.   Dr. Brewster  continued his flying practice until 1937 and learned to fly himself in  1943,  at the  age of 71.  More images in Nebraska Memories of Dr. Brewster can be viewed here.

Air shows in the pioneering days of flight were popular events showcasing flying machines and the skill of the pilots, just as they are today.   Aerial performances are dangerous  and can be fatal.   This summer the pilot was killed at a crash at the Kansas City Air Show in August and there are multiple deaths (11 at this writing) from the crash this month at the Reno Air Race.

We don’t know if the pilot of the plane which crashed on the roof of a barn at an early Nebraska air show survived, but the plane certainly didn’t.  More images of biplanes in Nebraska Memories  can be viewed here .

Visit Nebraska Memories to  search for or browse through many more historical images digitized from photographs,  negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials.

Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. Nebraska Memories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more
information, or contact Beth Goble, Government Information Services Director,
or Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director.

We Nebraskans are used to suffering through blisteringly hot days in late summer, and we sometimes refer to them as the Dog Days.  The phrase comes from the Roman calendar, which  referred to the period spanning July 24 to August 24 as  diēs caniculārēs, associated with the star  Sirius.  Sirius is called the Dog Star, and is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major.     

Another definition from Wikipedia seems ironic considering the anything-but-slow performance of the stock market this summer:  In recent years, the phrase “Dog Days” or “Dog Days of Summer” have also found new meanings. The term has frequently been used in reference to the American stock market.  Typically, summer is a very slow time for the stock market, and additionally, poorly performing stocks with little future potential are frequently known as “dogs”.    

While we may not always associate hot weather with constellations, finance or dogs,  the waning days of summer do seem like a good time to celebrate our canine companions.  A search in Nebraska Memories brings up a wealth of images of dogs in their various roles.   The pampered  household pet in the image above  must have been the darling of it’s family.       

Others were working dogs pulling travois for their native masters or herding cattle for their rancher owners. Still others were entertainers like the dog walking on the tight rope depicted here.   I hope it wasn’t too scared doing the high wire act!  Or they may simply have been overheated pooches getting into the shade like this one in front of Blondy’s Barber Shop and Pool Hall in Brainard.

Visit Nebraska Memories to search for or browse through many more historical images digitized from photographs, negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials.

 Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. Nebraska Memories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see    

<http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories> for more information, or contact  Beth Goble, Government Information Services Director, or Devra Dragos ,Technology & Access Services Director.