The Queen’s Road: Nebraska’s Bumpy Path to Statehood

Description

With many historic and colorful images and anecdotes, including rare maps, Barnes presents the second chapter in his Queen of the Prairies series. This presentation covers the second half of the territorial years, examining how and why Nebraska arrived at its present shape, how federal policies promoting white settlement and Native removal forced the territory to become a battleground, the internal politics which almost brought the southern half to secede to Kansas, our role as a witness to history with the Pony Express, transcontinental telegraph and the amazing “Steam Wagon,” the incident that birthed the legend of Wild Bill Hickok, the fight for statehood (with Nebraska becoming the first state to see its birth vetoed by a president), and the story of how Lincoln became the capital, stripping its name from another Nebraska town!