Today’s post is 1850 words, 51 photos, an 8 minute read. Enjoy!

Hi everyone,

This post is the fifth and last post in a series of places we visited this year in the USA. If you missed last week’s post, click here. Next week, I’ll begin a long series of posts featuring England and Scotland that I’m looking forward to writing.

Last month, my Traveling Partner and I hit the trail bound for Lincoln, Nebraska to attend the wedding of my nephew. In addition to the wedding and meeting up with a cousin, we decided to take in a few of the sites in the area. So here’s my story and photos, I hope you enjoy and maybe learn a thing or two.

Lincoln

As we approached Lincoln, I wondered how many towns in the U.S. are named after the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln. I turned to Google and AI to find out. According to the search results, twenty-seven states have a city or town name Lincoln including my home state of North Dakota and my adopted state of Wisconsin. In addition, there are 16 counties and 1 parish named Lincoln. It’s a pretty popular name for a very popular person in U.S history.

Lincoln, Nebraska is the capitol city of the state and home to the University of Nebraska. The population in the city is nearly 300,000 people with about 50,000 more in the greater metro area. The city was founded as Lancaster in 1856 and renamed Lincoln in 1869. In addition the state government and the university, service industries, manufacturing, the railroad, healthcare, and a growing tech sector provide jobs for the residents. The city is dotted with parks, that include walking and biking trails, there are nice museums and other places of interest for visitors. Lincoln is regarded as one of the top 100 places to live due to its strong economy, reasonable cost of living, and family-friendly atmosphere. The one con to living in Lincoln is the potential for harsh winters and severe summer thunderstorms with occasional tornadoes.

International Quilt Museum

My Traveling Partner is an avid quilter. When the wedding invitation arrived in the mail, she immediately put the International Quilt Museum at the top of the must do list. This museum, located on the University of Nebraska campus, holds the largest publicly owned collection of quilts in the world. The collection numbers in the thousands dating from the early 1700s to the present and represents more than 60 countries. It was interesting to learn that each quilt is not exhibited more than once in a 10 year period and that the quilts are wrapped in acid free tissue paper for conservation purposes. Since most of the quilts are folded, they are refolded every couple of years so as not to develop permanent creases. It’s a lot of work to lovingly preserve these works of art.

As we drove into the parking lot, I was impressed by the modern architecture of the building that opened to the public in 2008.

After entering the museum, we paid the entrance fee ($8 for adults, $6 for seniors) and picked up one of the maps for the three galleries. We learned there was a one-hour guided tour that began at 11 AM. Before the tour began, we went to the top floor where there was an exhibit of star quilts. I liked the bright yellow quilt that was hand quilted. It looked like something my grandma would have made. Both my grandmothers were quilters, we are in possession of a quilt from one of them.

I was also interested in the educational exhibit about how quilts are used and what they teach us. 

Another fascinating exhibit were several small quilts made of unusual materials such as feed sacks, found objects, old clothes, and etc. It was interesting to see the creativity of the quilters. 

Soon it was time to meet up with the guide, Mary Ann. She’s a volunteer at the museum and has been involved in quilting for much of her life, starting out as a young girl working along side her mother and grandmother.

Our first stop was the stunning work of a famous quilter, Victoria Findlay Wolfe. She uses basic shapes and bold colors in her work. While each piece has the same color and shapes, they are each different. And each of the individual quilts can be rearranged to create another design. I liked this exhibit a lot.

The next hall contained quilts that were best of show at the Nebraska State Fair. There was a wide variety of styles, some traditional and others very modern. A very nice exhibit.

Mary Ann took the group to the gallery that housed Yorgan’s (guilts) from Turkey. These quilts were made primarily by men. 

I thought the quilted prayer rugs were interesting. Some were quite worn, all these quilts were meant to be used, not stored away and preserved in a hope chest.

The last display were quilts made by a quilt guild in Manhattan. We often think of quilts as being made by rural or farm women to keep warm in the long, cold winter nights. The members of the guild were challenged to create a small quilt with a title that began with “re.” Things like rebuild, rework, renew, etc. Another display of interesting and creative quilts.

I didn’t expect that I would enjoy the museum as much as my Traveling Partner but I liked it a lot. The artistry, the creativity, the boldness, and thoughtfulness drew me in. It was the best 6 bucks I’ve spent in a long time. Here are a few parting photos from the museum.

Homestead National Historical Park

After a couple of days of wedding hoopla, my Traveling Partner and I headed 40 miles south of Lincoln toward Beatrice. Our destination was the Homestead National Historical Park, previously known (until 2021) as Homestead National Monument of America, operates under the auspices of the National Park Service. This park commemorates the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862 signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. This law allowed current citizens and prospective citizens to claim 160 acres of public land in exchange for living on and improving it for five years and paying a small filing fee. Eventually, an estimated 270 million acres of land, most west of the Mississippi River, was settled by homesteaders. Over the succeeding years, there were modifications to the law that allowed homesteading of larger acres of land in the more arid areas of the west.

The very first homestead was filed by Daniel Freeman on January 1, 1863. At the time he filed, he was serving in the Civil War as a doctor. His homestead of 160 acres was located five miles west of Beatrice, Nebraska, now part of which is included in the Homestead National Historical Park. When looking out the window of the park Heritage Center, this is what it might have looked like when Freeman staked his claim.

As we walked from the parking lot to the Heritage Center and Museum, we passed the living wall with cut-outs of the states where homesteads were filed. It began with Florida and ended with Alaska. I was most interested in my home state of North Dakota. The cut-out represented the percentage of land in the state that was homesteaded. As you can see, nearly half the land in that state was homesteaded. Two of those many homesteads were claimed by my great-grandparents in the late 1800s.

The building itself is a symbol of the life of the homesteader. Note the curve brow of the building in the shape of a single bottom plow moving through the soil. Sometimes that plow was pulled by an oxen, sometimes by a team of horses, and sometimes by a human.

The day of our visit, the temps were in the 90s, quite hot for mid-September. Upon entering the cool, air conditioned Heritage Center, we were welcomed by the friendly park ranger. He gave us the park brochure and pointed us to the small theater where we could view a 20-minute movie about the Homestead Act and the Historical Park. There is no entry fee for this park.

After the movie, we checked out the exhibits on the main and lower levels of the museum. I was intrigued by the Allis-Chalmers tractor on the main floor. I told the ranger that I’d spent considerable time on an Allis-Chalmers tractor cultivating corn, raking hay, and other duties as assigned. I can attest that the seat of those tractors were not built for comfort!

The windmill was also of interest to me. At one time nearly every farm had a windmill to pump water out of the ground for human and animal consumption. When gas engines and electric motors came along, those windmills fell into disrepair and were eventually junked. I have a story in my book about my encounter with a windmill when I was about 2 or 3 years old. 

The well-appointed and organized museum took us through the history of homesteading, the Indian removals, the successes and failures of the people who filled those homesteads.

I was particularly interested in the concept of whose land was it, who had the right to take it and give to someone else. The idea of Manifest Destiny took hold in the United States in the 1840s that justified the removal of Native Americans from their territory. It was a general idea promulgated by politicians of the day rather than a specific written policy. In my opinion, this was a dark period in our the development of our country when at the same time we were enslaving people. Did all these actions benefit the country? Yes, but at what cost? I certainly benefited, growing up on the farm that my great-grandfather homesteaded that was once the hunting grounds of the indigenous peoples. These were some of the thoughts going through my mind as I toured the exhibits. I glad those who created this museum acknowledged these conundrums.

It was interesting to see some of the tools the first settlers used to till the ground, plant and harvest the seeds. It was hard work. There was a significant percentage of the people that didn’t make it due to low crop prices, drought, prairie fires, diseases, and etc.

In the chart below, it was interesting to note that Montana, North Dakota, and Colorado had the largest number of proven homesteads in the country.

After our tour of the museum, we stepped out into the hot sun for a quick look at the exhibits outside. The restored tall grass prairie filled with buffalo grass and coneflowers was quite beautiful and inviting. There are few miles of walking trails that take visitors close to the original homestead of Daniel Freeman. Due to the hot weather, we skipped this part of our visit.

This cabin is an example of a typical first house of homesteaders where there was access to trees. The family who lived in this cabin had 10 children. It’s hard to imagine how they made it through the winter in such close quarters without committing a homicide. But they persevered and many of them thrived.

We really enjoyed our couple hour visit to this National Park unit. We recommend going out of your way to enjoy this interesting and stimulating historical park.

After leaving Homestead, we headed back to Madison making an overnight stop at the Amana Colonies in central Iowa. I’ve written about them before, click here to read about another historical site.

Next week, join me for the beginning of a long series of our travels to Scotland and England.

Until then, happy travels!

Tom

PS: Click here for a link to the post about my book “Farm Boy.” Contact me if you are interested in purchasing a copy. Thanks to all have plunked down your hard earned dollars and read the book. TM