NEBRASKA

NEBRASKA HAS PRODUCED more than its well-known crops of corn, soybeans and wheat, and a historically top-ranked football team—the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. It’s also produced stars such as entertainer Fred Astaire, actors Marlon Brando and Henry Fonda, writer Willa Cather and former US president Gerald Ford.

But long before those stars were born, historical headliners blazoned their way through the area—including Étienne Veniard de Bourgmont, the first recorded European in Nebraska; Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, explorers of the Louisiana Purchase; and Robert Stuart, an Oregon Trail pioneer. Embrace those trailblazers’ legacy by using this guide to plot your own Nebraska family’s past.

SEEDS OF SETTLEMENT

From 1830 to 1854, the government designated Nebraska as Indian Territory. After a failed 1844 attempt at “normal” territoryhood, the area remained Indian Territory until