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Lower Plains: Kansas, Nebraska

Because wood and stone were hard to find on the prairie, many homesteaders in Nebraska built sod houses, using blocks of soil held together with thick-rooted prairie grass. This photo of a farm family in front of their sod house was taken around 1886.

Nebraska’s cattle industry by creating an increased demand for the meat. By the late 1860s, Nebraska was America’s top producer of beef. Two years after the Civil War ended, Nebraska finally achieved statehood. Lancaster, renamed

Lincoln after recently assassinated President Lincoln, became its new capital. The state’s proposed constitution originally included a clause restricting the right to vote to whites. As a result, Congress initially rejected Nebraska’s