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Lower Plains: Kansas, Nebraska

federal government made it illegal for whites to settle in the areas west of the Mississippi—including Nebraska— that were now reserved for Indians. The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act changed that. The organization of Nebraska into a territory officially opened it up for white settlement. Omaha, just north of the mouth of the Platte River, became the new territo- ry’s capital. Territorial Nebraska originally included parts of present-day Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. As these lands, in turn, became U.S. ter- ritories, Nebraska gradually shrank to its current size. The impetus for making Nebraska a territory came from the push to create a transcontinental railroad. Westward expansion was continuing at a rapid rate. Establishing a rail connection along the Platte valley route would make the journey out west easier and faster. And with more and more people and goods passing through its borders, Nebraska was starting to become a destination in its own right.

Did You Know?

Kool-Aid was invented in Nebraska in 1927. It is the official soft drink of the Cornhusker State.

and explorer Manuel Lisa built a trad- ing post at Fort Lisa, near present-day Omaha. In 1822, the Missouri Fur Company established a permanent settlement in nearby Bellevue. This was the first town in Nebraska. In the 1830s, however, Nebraska— like Kansas—had become a place to relocate Native Americans who lived in the lands east of the Mississippi River that the U.S. considered to be more desirable. To compensate, the

Did You Know?

Celebrated worldwide as a day to plant trees, Arbor Day was established in Nebraska in 1872. Today, in the United States, the holiday is observed on the final Friday in April.