Today we traveled to Kearney, NE, about 50 miles away. Since the drive was so short we avoided the interstate and traveled west on Hwy 30. We arrived in Kearney at about 11:45 am. We parked on a side street and had a little lunch, then we pulled out, arriving at the RV Park at about 12:15. The sites are relatively nice, all pull-thrus, with full hook-ups…
At 3:00 pm we all drove the two miles to “The Archway.”..
The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument is a monument on Interstate 80 located three miles east of Kearney, Nebraska. Opened in July 2000, it houses a historical experience that tells the story of Nebraska and the Platte River Valley in the development of America. The monument spans more than 300 feet above Interstate 80.
Since prehistoric times, the trail along the Platte River through Nebraska, which came to be known as the Great Platte River Road, has been a thoroughfare for travel across the continent. The Archway museum details the stories of the pioneers, adventurers, and innovators who have traveled the trail since the mid-1800s and helped to build America. The exhibit starts at Fort Kearny in 1848 and features sections on the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail that converged at the nearby Fort Kearny before heading west. As visitors progress through the exhibit, the displays of different time periods feature a prairie schooner wagon on the Oregon Trail, a buffalo stampede, the Mormon Handcart Expedition, a 49er’s campsite, the Pony Express (including a video of a rider arriving at a relay station, transferring the mail to a fresh horse, and galloping off…), the Transcontinental Telegraph (which, of course, killed the Pony Express…), a stagecoach, the Transcontinental Railroad (which, of course, ended the wagon trains…), the first transcontinental highway, the Lincoln Highway, and today’s transcontinental highway, I-80 (which, of course, killed thousands of small towns across the country and ended the livelihoods of millions of people…). The exhibit ends with a replica drive-in and 1950s-style café with windows providing views over the interstate. The exhibits are featured in chronological order and reflect the historical developments that occurred on the Great Platte River Road.
The art and exhibits were very interesting, and there were audio devices so we could each hear the story behind each exhibit as we walked through…
(I remember roadside cabins and motels like this when I traveled with my family across the country in 1961…)
There is a window from the exhibit of a roadside diner overlooking the 80. There is also a radar gun so we can see who is exceeding the posted speed limit of 75 mph.
It was a great exhibit – highly recommended…
We returned to the Villa. Tonight we had another GAM where we met four new couples. We had a little happy hour and sandwiches for dinner.
We have a free day today in Grand Island. We can do nothing, or we can choose to see some of the local attractions…
But, first, we wanted to add one more sticker to our map of states we have pulled the Villa through. Welcome, Nebraska!
For our local excursion today we visited the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, located right here in Grand Island. It is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Pioneers who settled the plains of central Nebraska in the late 19th century. It features a living history village called Railroad Town, designed to evoke an 1890s-era prairie village and made up of many original period structures moved to the museum. The main museum building, shown below, was designed by the renowned modernist architect Edward Durell Stone. The museum is named after Leo Stuhr, a local farmer and politician whose family were among the area’s pioneer settlers. He donated land, money, and numerous artifacts that served as the foundation of the museum.
Among the structures in Railroad Town is the house where actor Henry Fonda was born in 1905. Movies filmed at the museum include Sarah, Plain and Tall (1991) and My Antonia (1995).
The Stuhr Building is located, of course, on an island…
We toured the main exhibit space that had, predictably, artifacts and photographs of the pioneer period of the late 1800s and early 1900s… Very interesting exhibits, and a very beautiful building… I generally dislike museums, but this one was clearly an exception.
After the museum we walked around the grounds. First up are the ruts of the Overland Trail. In this part of the country the Oregon Trail, the California Trail, and the Mormon Trail all shared this general road. Contrary to popular movies and TV shows, the wagons did not travel single file. They generally spread out over a 1-1/2 mile wide swath of land…
There is a Pawnee Lodge – a dirt-covered structure used by several families as living quarters…
The perimeter is lined with beds, and holes in the floor were used for food storage. As many as 30-50 people lived in this space. (It is about 38′ in diameter…)
We walked on. Lynda wanted to show the scale and size of these hay bales…
This view of the prairie grass here represents what the area would have looked like as the pioneers traveled through. It is about 3′-4′ tall… The wagon trails just passed through. But when the farmers arrived, imagine what it must have been like to plow this land!
The Pioneer village contains several buildings from around 1890 – 1910. These buildings have been donated by local families and moved onto the property. Interestingly, as we drive through the countryside, we see buildings like this that are still occupied and being used.
Over in Railroad Town there are more buildings that have been moved here. This is a 5 block town, complete with railroad depot, blacksmith shop, livery stable, and many houses and stores.
We had noticed that the adjacent stretch of highway 30 through Grand Island is called, “Henry Fonda Memorial Parkway”.. We Googled to see why and found that he had been born here in Grand Island. Here in Railroad Town is his birthplace home:
The Fonda family moved away when he was about one year old, so it is doubtful that he remembered the house, but he did visit here after it was moved onto the museum ground and restored…
After we toured Railroad Town we checked out the log cabins…
We returned to the Villa. This evening we have a pot-luck dinner and a Drivers Meeting, where tomorrow’s travel plans are discussed. Finally we had our first GAM – a Get-Acquainted-Meeting; we were host tonight. Four other couples joined us and we introduced ourselves to each other. These are usually a lot of fun.
We hitched up our wagons and the wagon train started west today, following the Oregon Trail… Or at least so it seems…
The Oregon Trail was a 2,170-mile east-west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the current states of Idaho and Oregon.
The Oregon Trail was laid by fur traders and trappers from about 1811 to 1840 and was only passable on foot or by horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Wagon trails were cleared increasingly farther west, and eventually reached all the way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Annual improvements were made in the form of bridges, cutoffs, ferries, and roads, which made the trip faster and safer. From various starting points in Iowa, Missouri, or Nebraska Territory, the routes converged along the lower Platte River Valley near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory, and led to rich farmlands west of the Rocky Mountains.
From the early to mid-1830s (and particularly through the years 1846–1869) the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers, and business owners and their families. The eastern half of the trail was also used by travelers on the California Trail (from 1843), Mormon Trail (from 1847), and Bozeman Trail (from 1863), before turning off to their separate destinations. Use of the trail declined as the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, making the trip west substantially faster, cheaper, and safer. Today, modern highways, such as Interstate 80 and Interstate 84, follow parts of the same course westward and pass through towns originally established to serve those using the Oregon Trail.
Early emigrants
On May 1, 1839, a group of eighteen men from Peoria, Illinois, set out with the intention of colonizing the Oregon country on behalf of the United States of America. The men of the Peoria Party were among the first pioneers to traverse most of the Oregon Trail. They carried a large flag emblazoned with their motto “Oregon Or The Grave“. Nine of these members eventually did reach Oregon.
In September 1840, Robert Newell, Joseph L. Meek, and their families reached Fort Walla Walla with three wagons that they had driven from Fort Hall. Their wagons were the first to reach the Columbia River over land, and they opened the final leg of Oregon Trail to wagon traffic.
In 1841, the Bartleson-Bidwell Party was the first emigrant group credited with using the Oregon Trail to emigrate west. The group set out for California, but about half the party left the original group at Soda Springs, Idaho, and proceeded to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, leaving their wagons at Fort Hall.
On May 16, 1842, the second organized wagon train set out from Elm Grove, Missouri, with more than 100 pioneers. The party was led by Elijah White. The group broke up after passing Fort Hall with most of the single men hurrying ahead and the families following later.
Great Migration of 1843
In what was dubbed “The Great Migration of 1843” or the “Wagon Train of 1843”, an estimated 700 to 1,000 emigrants left for Oregon. They were led initially by John Gantt, a former U.S. Army Captain and fur trader who was contracted to guide the train to Fort Hall for $1 per person. The winter before, Marcus Whitman had made a brutal mid-winter trip from Oregon to St. Louis to appeal a decision by his mission backers to abandon several of the Oregon missions. He joined the wagon train at the Platte River for the return trip. When the pioneers were told at Fort Hall by agents from the Hudson’s Bay Company that they should abandon their wagons there and use pack animals the rest of the way, Whitman disagreed and volunteered to lead the wagons to Oregon. He believed the wagon trains were large enough that they could build whatever road improvements they needed to make the trip with their wagons. The biggest obstacle they faced was in the Blue Mountains of Oregon where they had to cut and clear a trail through heavy timber. The wagons were stopped at The Dalles, Oregon, by the lack of a road around Mount Hood. The wagons had to be disassembled and floated down the treacherous Columbia River and the animals herded over the rough Lolo trail to get by Mt. Hood. Nearly all of the settlers in the 1843 wagon trains arrived in the Willamette Valley by early October. A passable wagon trail now existed from the Missouri River to The Dalles.
So our wagon train set out for Oregon…
We headed back towards St. Joseph, and crossed over the wide Missouri into Kansas again…
About an hour later we arrived in Hiawatha and found the Brown County Agricultural Museum and Windmill Lane…
It is an interesting place. Many old barns have been moved onto the property, and thousands of ancient home appliances and farm tools and implements, from Tractors and Combines to open end wrenches, are on display.
As we all pulled in together. Parking was a little tight…
Very tight…
In fact, it was so tight that we pulled up close to one another. In the photo below you can see the Villa parked next to a telephone pole. But there will be plenty of room to pull around the pole once the other Airstreams left.
There are probably 50 windmills of all shapes and types. Most often windmills operated pumps bring water up from wells. Some of the windmills charged batteries providing power and lights, and some even generated electricity through a wind-powered generator…
The various bards are full of ancient appliances, tractors, plows, cars, and other miscellaneous things…
As some of the first Airstreams started to pull out it was time to leave. I checked out the space around the telephone pole, backed up a bit to get a little more clearance, and I started to pull forward.
There was plenty of room as my tires went by the pole. However, there was a large low spot adjacent to the pole. Thus, as I pulled forward, the Villa tilted towards the pole to the point that it was within 1/16 of an inch of touching the pole. There we stopped.
Much head-scratching later, we (about 20 Airstream experts) decided that the only way to get past the pole was to jack up the Airstream far enough to get long 2×6 boards under the wheels to un-tilt the Airstream. We found boards, blocks, and three small hydraulic jacks. After much huffing, puffing, and groaning we had the wheels off the ground and the boards and blocks fitted beneath the wheels…
I pulled forward and we were clear, to much applause. All that was left to do was to collect the boards, blocks, and jacks and return them to their rightful places…
And we were on the road again…
We turned north and finally reached Nebraska! We had not been in the Villa in Nebraska before. This is state #41!
Nebraska is, of course, full of corn fields…
About the only difference we could see between Kansas and Nebraska is that Nebraska has more irrigated fields…
We stopped at a Rest Area, where we were joined by another Airstream…
We arrived at our parking spot for two nights – this is Fonner Park, the home of the Nebraska State Fair, located in Grand Island… Lots of room, not too warm, and barely humid…
We celebrated the liberation of the Villa from the pole with Happy Hours; I shared many bottles of my wine with my new friends.
Adventures in the Villa 