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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
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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.