By Mary Jane Noble

A birthday happens every year. It’s a good time to pause. So let’s take a moment to celebrate the founding of two very special locations on earth that have made an impact on our lives: Nebraska and Boone County.

Happy Birthday, Nebraska! Statehood was granted in 1867 making Nebraska the 37th state of our United States of America. On March 1, 2024, the state will turn 157 years young!

The name “Nebraska” came from a Sioux word describing the river meaning “shallow water” or “broad water.” It is also said to be an Otos Indian word meaning “flat river,” referring to the Platte River.

In response to westward migration and the call for a trans-continental railroad, the 14th President, Franklin Pierce, signed the Nebraska- Kansas Act on May 30, 1854, creating the Nebraska Territory.

The state of Nebraska came about from the unorganized federal Nebraska Territory. The Nebraska Territory included what is now all of the state of Nebraska, as well as parts of Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

The state has 93 counties. The 2020 Census showed a population of 1,961,504.

Four major rivers exist in Nebraska, in addition to several smaller ones. Major rivers are the Platte, the Niobrara, the Missouri, and the Republican River, all of which drain many square miles of land. The state claims about 79,056 miles of river.

And of course, Nebraska is known for corn and its university athletic teams, the Cornhuskers. Its affectionate nickname is the “Cornhusker State.”

About Boone County

Did you know Boone County was formed March 1, 1871?

On March 1, 2024, the county will be 153 years young!

Boone County was named for the famous Kentucky frontiersman, Daniel Boone, and this county was part of the plentiful hunting territories of the Sioux and Pawnee tribes. In the 1860s, the first white settlers began exploring the area; and in 1871, a few men began constructing sod houses along Beaver Creek.

Boone County’s 634 square miles of land (or 437,760 acres) today provide a home for 5,379 people (2020 census); made up of the towns of Albion (1,699), St. Edward (725), Cedar Rapids (382), Petersburg (332), and Primrose (55); while the unincorporated or rural population makes up 41 percent of the county with 2,186 people.

Agriculture is the primary use for 92 percent of the land development (2022), and one percent is devoted to timber. This leaves seven percent for residential, commercial, industrial, conservation reserve and tax exempt properties.

In the early years, half of Boone County was chosen by the Burlington & Missouri Railroad as part of a vast grant received from the U.S. Government. Approximately 12,000 acres fell to the Union Pacific in its 20-mile belt of territory through the state when settlers began homesteading.

Boone County’s early history is documented in “Pioneers of the West,” a true narrative by John Turner. This 404-page book was copyrighted in 1903 by Jennings and Pye. Turner’s family homesteaded in Boone County.

John Turner begins his journey: “the last in the month of June 1871, when the narrator, with his wife and three small children, all boys, could be seen starting out from the Euston Station of the London and Northwestern Railway, bound for Liverpool. Passage had been previously secured, on the steamship Java, for America.”

Later in the book, on October 17th, Turner “took out declaration or first naturalization papers, and at the same time filed papers on one hundred sixty acres of Government land under the homestead laws, in a country just newly organized called Boone County.” Coming through Columbus, the first place in Boone County his family stayed overnight was in a shanty at a place called St. Edward.

The Boone County Museum has the copied pages of the book. The book itself can be purchased online. Nebraska History has used information from this book as a resource in its education programs on the life of a pioneer. Boone County had one of Nebraska’s lighthouses that was noted in the state’s history.

Happy Birthday, Boone County!

The name “Nebraska” came from a Sioux word describing the river meaning “shallow water” or “broad water.”