In the early 1840s, when the first wagon trains started westward across Nebraska, they were headed toward the promise of a new life in Oregon. Next the discovery of gold in California brought the Forty-niners through Nebraska by the tens of thousands. All these people saw Nebraska only as a stage in their journey, not as a destination. Nevertheless, wearied by the hardships of the overland trails, some of the westward-bound pioneers stopped and settled in the Nebraska river valleys. Here and there squatters' sod huts sprang up on the plains. With the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862, thousands of settlers sought homes in the Nebraska Territory. Finally, the railroad pushed back Nebraska's last frontier, and the territory became a state in 1867.
Transportation routes and rich soil have been keys to both the history and the prosperity of the Cornhusker State. First rivers, then overland trails, and finally railroads and highways opened new parts of Nebraska for settlement. Today the rolling plains of eastern Nebraska support both farms and cities, great fields of wheat and corn cover the central prairies, and cattle roam the western grasslands.
Nebraska is now one of the chief farming states in the United States. About 92 percent of its area is in crops and pastureland--a higher percentage than that of any other state. Nebraska's fertile farms produce bountiful yields of corn, soybeans, wheat, hay, sorghum, oats, and sugar beets. Long stretches of grazing lands feed great herds of cattle.
The name Nebraska probably comes from an Oto Indian word meaning shallow, or spreading, water, in reference to the Platte River. Nebraska is called the Cornhusker State, from the nickname of the University of Nebraska football team. Another nickname is the Tree Planters State.
Nebraska lies in the north-central region of the United States, in the western part of the Great Plains. It is bounded on the north by South Dakota, on the west by Wyoming and Colorado, and on the south by Kansas. On the east the Missouri River separates Nebraska from Missouri and Iowa. This state extends for 420 miles (676 kilometers) from east to west. The north-south distance is 210 miles (338 kilometers). It has an area of 77,227 square miles (200,017 square kilometers), including 744 square miles (1,927 square kilometers) of water surface.
