Book Review: This Land Called America: Nebraska

 Nebraska: This Land Called America by Rachael Hanel, Creative Education, Mankota, Minnesota, 2010.

This book seems to be more a picture book than a history book, but it does include some history.  Native tribes living in the area were the Pawnee, Sioux, Omaha, Oto, Ponca and Arapaho.  Spain climed the area, and then the French, and after the Louisiana Purchase the United States.  In 1804-1806 The Lewis and Clark Corp of Discovery explored the area and made contact with Native Americans on their adventure to the Pacific.  They did not find a water course to the Pacific.  

Gradually the Native Americans were pushed off of their native lands, and were confined to reservations.  Some fought against the encroachment, but eventually all were confined, the Omaha and Ponca and Santee Sioux have reservations in Nebraska.  

Over time more and more settlers stayed in Nebraska.  Nebraska had been a travel through area on the Mormon and Oregon and California Trails.  The Homestead Act encouraged people to use the land and slowly Nebraska became populated.  Nebraska became a territory in 1854 and a state in 1867.  It became a railroad area with the completion of the transcontinental rail in 1869.  This also lead to the area becoming a cattle area.  The stockyards in South Omaha established the area as the major cow processing area in the nation.

Some famous Nebraskans include author Willa Cather and comedian Johnny Carson.  Lincoln was established as the state capital.  University of Nevada Lincoln prides themselves for their football tradition.  The Offutt Air base in Bellevue Nebraska has often been the hub of the strategic air defense since after WWII.   

Booklet Review: A Wandering Walk Guidebook: Kingman, AZ

 A Wnadering Walk Guidebook: Kingman, AZ by Tom Alyea, Wandering Walks of Wonder, Las Vegas, NV, 2019.

This a very quick description of a three mile hike through downtown Kingman.  It starts with a brief history of the town, from Captain Beale who laid out an east to west trail across the United States in 1857, to Lewis Kingman who planned a rail terminal in late 1870s.  The town was officially founded in 1882.  It became the county seat in 1887.  

Kingman received rapid expansion during WWII when the Kingman Army Air Field provided training the machine gun operators for the B-17 bomber, the flying fortress.  35,000 airmen were trained during the war.  After the war the same area was used as a storage and recycling facility for thousands of planes which were no longer needed.  

The hike starts at the power house on Route 66/Andy Devine.  The power house was built 1907 and supplied power not only for Kingman but many nearby communities and mines.  When Hoover Dam was completed in 1938 it soon became obsolete to the hydroelectric capability of the dam. 

Other highlights on the hike include the Santa Fe depot, Beale Hotel where Andy Devine wandered as a child, the Brunswick Hotel where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard stayed when they were married.  The Mohave Union High School gymnasium with its unique ceiling.  It is all that is left of the old Kingman High School which moved to Bank Street and has now been replaced by Lee Williams High School.  The Kingman Grammar (now Palo Christi) School is behind the courthouse, The courthouse and old jail, St. Mary's Church, AT&T offices.  The Bonelli House is now a museum.  The Elks Lodge built in 1904 is the oldest freternal organization, The I.O.O.F.  was the second built in 1912.  The Little Red School House was replaced by the Grammar School.  The Masonic Temple is on Fourth Street, as is the Central Commercial Building, an early store.  

Book Review: The Southwest Indians: Daily Life in the 1500s

  The Southwest Indians: Daily Life in the 1500s by Mary Englar, Bridgestone Books, Capstone Press, 2006.

Agter reading this short book I was not sure why it had the subtitle, daily life in th 1500s.  The book did not touch the topic at all.  The book does give a pretty good list of tribes living in the Southwest.  It extends into Mexico.  It does include Navajo, Apache, Zuni, Hopi, Hualapai, Yavapai, Mohave, Pima and a few more.  The social structure is similar to that of other Native American groups; groups of families called a clan or a band and a leader called a chief.  Unique in this area is Native American homes made of brick.  You use what you have.  Much of the Southwest is desert and tribes had to make adaptations.  The Navajo raised wool and cotton for fibers for clothing.  The Pueblo traded with others across a wide area.  Popular games were Patol (a game with sticks) and the moccasin game (a hiding game).  Also racing was popular.  Ceremonies were held to honor nature.  The Hopi danced with the kachina dolls to pray for rain and long life.  They passed along oral traditions from one generation to the next.

The Negro Motorist Green Book from Durham History Museum Exhibit

 The Green Book was founded by Victor Hugo Green, a New York City postal worker.  It was published annually from 1936 to 1966.  Jim Crow laws during this period made it difficult for a Black motoris to be safe while traveling.  Discrimination was accepted and legal at the time.  The Green Book was to help provide information to counteract this effect.  It provided information on where to stay in several diffent home, especially New York and Los Angeles.  The exhibit also documents discrimination as well as the civil rights movement, and safe places for the Black traveler.

The result of racial discrimination

beach trip

racism

Muhammed Ali and Malcolm X

Martin Luther King

struggle for Civil Rights

Omaha

Lower End of Mormon Hollow

 In 1846 Mormon Hollow is the area which Big Elk provided for the Mormons to stay and shelter from the extreme Nebraska heat.  This was likely a smaller group of the immigrating Saints.  They only stayed there a short time before Brigham Young asked them to move north, to Cold Springs and then to CUtlers Park and Winter Quarters.  He said there was not room there for a large group of Saints.  I have hiked to the upper Mormon Hollow which is very narrow and would have been difficult for wagons to stay.  There is more room at the bottom, which would have been just off of the Missouri River which I understand at the time flowed through where the marsh is now.  Even though there is more room, and the trees provide shelter, there was not room for the entire body of emigrants.  Since the path of the river has gone father east and left the Gifford peninsula.  There is also clearly water in this area.  Mormon Hollow is now part of Fontenelle Forest,