Latest / Ridiculous History / The Nebraska Episode

Transcript

The Nebraska Episode · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
0:30
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for the legend. Our
0:34
Speaker 1: super producer, mister Max Williams.
0:37
Speaker 2: A free empty fizza. I love.
0:39
Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm a little early today, I guess get really
0:41
Speaker 3: excited when we're talking about corn filled flat states.
0:45
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's definitely a trigger for you in a
0:47
Speaker 2: positive way.
0:48
Speaker 3: Have an oddly large amount of power in electoral college votes.
0:53
Speaker 2: Now, its weird. We'll get to it. We'll get to it.
0:56
Speaker 2: It's it's it's you Ben as well, right.
0:58
Speaker 1: Yes, that's our super sir, mister Max Williams. You were
1:01
Speaker 1: Noel Brown. I am Ben Bullen. We are not currently
1:06
Speaker 1: in Nebraska. The transparency invisibility is important for us. Have
1:10
Speaker 1: you guys been to Nebraska.
1:12
Speaker 4: I have been through it, and I think I've mentioned
1:15
Speaker 4: this on our other podcast stuff. They don't want you
1:17
Speaker 4: to know that once when I was younger and in
1:20
Speaker 4: a band, I was traveling through the corn the flat
1:23
Speaker 4: corn leyden lands of Nebraska, and I swear to you guys,
1:27
Speaker 4: I saw ufo.
1:29
Speaker 3: I have never been to Nebraska, but yeah, I mean,
1:35
Speaker 3: can we just go to Kansas and say we went
1:36
Speaker 3: to Nebraska.
1:37
Speaker 1: That's what a lot of people do. I find great, great,
1:41
Speaker 1: easy mistake. I find great peace in Nebraska and Kansas
1:45
Speaker 1: because with that amount of agriculture, if you get in
1:49
Speaker 1: the right spot in the state, it looks like an ocean,
1:52
Speaker 1: you know, at the right time of year, and it's
1:53
Speaker 1: just beautiful. But like all of the states in the
1:59
Speaker 1: US US United, here in this grand experiment, we have
2:04
Speaker 1: learned that there are absolutely ridiculous things that have happened
2:08
Speaker 1: throughout Nebraska's career as a state, and some of them
2:13
Speaker 1: are not about corn days.
2:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was really hoping we were having an exclusively
2:18
Speaker 4: corn based episode today. So let's talk a bit about
2:23
Speaker 4: how Nebraska once created multiple counties that didn't actually exist,
2:28
Speaker 4: some Nebraska's decided, how they really enjoyed carrying barns, and
2:33
Speaker 4: how the naming of the capitol was a misplaced gambit
2:37
Speaker 4: gone horribly awry.
2:39
Speaker 1: And big shout out at the top two not just
2:42
Speaker 1: our research associate Max for this episode, but also shout
2:45
Speaker 1: out to Dealena Lefever's l E F E V e
2:50
Speaker 1: r s from Only in Your State for two articles
2:54
Speaker 1: that informed a lot of our exploration today we talk
2:58
Speaker 1: about Braska. One of the most I don't mean this
3:03
Speaker 1: in a disparateure way, one of the most funny parts
3:06
Speaker 1: of its origin story is it kind of started off
3:09
Speaker 1: wrong from the jump. The initial map had six like
3:13
Speaker 1: pretty egregious errors.
3:15
Speaker 4: That's right, and that wasn't uncommon in the founding days
3:19
Speaker 4: of these United States. But this is a particularly ridiculous example.
3:29
Speaker 4: So for today's first story of non corn related Nebraska history,
3:33
Speaker 4: let us venture back to the mid eighteen hundreds and
3:37
Speaker 4: get a little in the weeds with that initial map
3:40
Speaker 4: of Nebraska and those six very glaring errors. According to
3:44
Speaker 4: Joe Carry, an editorial assistant for History Nebraska, youah this
3:50
Speaker 4: to say. After Nebraska became a territory in eighteen fifty four,
3:53
Speaker 4: the legislature quickly began organizing counties. Nebraska's original eight counties
3:58
Speaker 4: had become forty by eighteen sixty one, when the expansion
4:01
Speaker 4: slowed due to the Civil War. County creation picked up
4:04
Speaker 4: again following Nebraska's statehood in eighteen sixty seven, and the
4:08
Speaker 4: map business was competitive as commercial printers strove to keep
4:11
Speaker 4: up with the changes. Then you want to finish this
4:14
Speaker 4: one out it's a little bit of a long one,
4:15
Speaker 4: but I think it's a good context.
4:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's tease this out a bit. The quotation continues.
4:22
Speaker 1: In mid eighteen sixty seven, the Colton Firm published Colton's
4:27
Speaker 1: Township Map of the state of Nebraska, and it showed
4:30
Speaker 1: the following counties Lyon, Taylor, Monroe, Harrison, Jackson, and Grant. Collectively,
4:38
Speaker 1: these six counties covered almost twenty percent of the state's land. However,
4:43
Speaker 1: there was one problem. These counties were not real legal entities.
4:47
Speaker 1: They had never been established. They just it was kind
4:51
Speaker 1: of fake it till you make it in the world
4:53
Speaker 1: of cartography, and our buddy Joe Carey, who was again
4:57
Speaker 1: writing for History Nebraska, is referencing a lot of work
5:01
Speaker 1: from a guy named Brian P. Croft in his piece
5:06
Speaker 1: Mapping Nebraska eighteen sixty six eighteen seventy one County Boundaries
5:11
Speaker 1: Real and imagined.
5:12
Speaker 5: A little bit of snark in the title there question.
5:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know they weren't just the Colton's, the
5:19
Speaker 4: firm that was responsible for this mapping situation. They weren't
5:23
Speaker 4: just making up boundaries. The map actually follows guidelines of
5:28
Speaker 4: a bill HR one oh four that did pass in
5:31
Speaker 4: February of eighteen sixty seven, but then when it was
5:33
Speaker 4: sent to the Governor, Alvin Sanders for his signature, he
5:37
Speaker 4: decided to not go through with signing it. This is
5:41
Speaker 4: what is referred to as a pocket veto, which means
5:44
Speaker 4: that legally, the western third of the state of Nebraska
5:47
Speaker 4: would for the time being remain blank. General Land Office
5:52
Speaker 4: maps actually don't show the six counties, and there are
5:56
Speaker 4: no records of them in the office of the County Clerk.
6:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, but here's the thing.
6:02
Speaker 1: People like these sorts of sources and map makers often
6:08
Speaker 1: take a build upon each other's work, right, and there's
6:11
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that. They're constantly checking the work of
6:14
Speaker 1: others correcting it if they're doing their job right. But
6:17
Speaker 1: in this case, because the Colton maps were so popular,
6:22
Speaker 1: other map makers just began to copy them. And the
6:26
Speaker 1: more this mistake was repeated, just like the more often
6:31
Speaker 1: a big lie is repeated, the more legitimate the counties seemed.
6:36
Speaker 1: Because someone would say, well, legally, these never happened, And
6:39
Speaker 1: then it wasn't too long before someone would say, I
6:42
Speaker 1: don't care about a pocket veto. I've got three maps
6:46
Speaker 1: that say Monroe County is actual facts.
6:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean in the counties. They were not removed
6:53
Speaker 4: from the maps until eighteen seventy three, and they're referred
6:57
Speaker 4: to as ghost counties, which I really like it sounds,
7:00
Speaker 4: especially as we approach spooky season here on Ridiculous History.
7:05
Speaker 4: They continued because of that kind of game of telephone
7:07
Speaker 4: or a copy of a copy of a copy situation.
7:10
Speaker 4: They remained on some of those other maps produced by
7:12
Speaker 4: map makers who did not get the memo until as
7:15
Speaker 4: late as eighteen seventy seven. So it really was at
7:19
Speaker 4: a certain point kind of a mystery as to how
7:20
Speaker 4: these fake counties began in the first place, and it
7:24
Speaker 4: was a mystery that wouldn't be solved until Croft discovered
7:27
Speaker 4: an original manuscript handwritten of that bill HR one oh
7:32
Speaker 4: four at the Nebraska State Historical Society's Government Records Office.
7:36
Speaker 4: The NSHS is the official archive of the state of Nebraska,
7:41
Speaker 4: and they preserve all kinds of official documents relating to
7:45
Speaker 4: historical legislation.
7:47
Speaker 1: This is just very Kafka esque, Joseph Heller esque. But
7:54
Speaker 1: you may be saying, come on, guys, that's paperwork. I
7:57
Speaker 1: get it, But we're talking about Nebraska, about the people
8:00
Speaker 1: on the ground. This is where we're going to explain
8:03
Speaker 1: something we mentioned at the very top, which is the
8:06
Speaker 1: idea of moving a barn. We've been let's get on
8:12
Speaker 1: the ground. This one is sort of corn related. If
8:15
Speaker 1: you go to Brian Master from WOWT six news out
8:19
Speaker 1: there in Omaha in great work, Yeah, you'll see you'll
8:23
Speaker 1: see the following quote. He says, many people still talk
8:28
Speaker 1: about it the time people once moved a barn. This
8:32
Speaker 1: is the time in the nineteen eighties when hundreds of
8:34
Speaker 1: volunteers moved a barn by hand. What Yeah, they had cars,
8:40
Speaker 1: but they went with their hands. They went with hand
8:42
Speaker 1: power over horsepower. You could say nineteen eighty eight was
8:46
Speaker 1: a great year for Mike and Karen Austry. A week
8:49
Speaker 1: before they got married, the small Nebraska community of Bruno
8:53
Speaker 1: celebrated its one hundredth anniversary. Bruno got put on the
8:57
Speaker 1: world map that day, said Mike Austreet, and he took
9:01
Speaker 1: a news crew over to the barn to learn what
9:06
Speaker 1: captivated the town. Because you know, one thing I love
9:08
Speaker 1: about small towns, especially in the US, is they will
9:12
Speaker 1: sometimes out of the blue, just kill it with innovative celebrations.
9:17
Speaker 1: You know, I love going into I travel a lot
9:20
Speaker 1: of backroads for different reasons, and I love going to
9:23
Speaker 1: you know, just some small town way off the highway
9:26
Speaker 1: and learning it's like it's you know, Yellow Gord Weekend
9:32
Speaker 1: or sing or like, who who doesn't love a.
9:34
Speaker 2: Good bi centennial celebration.
9:36
Speaker 4: I always think of the incredible faux documentary Waiting for
9:40
Speaker 4: Guffman and the I believe it's the Sesqua centennial celebration
9:44
Speaker 4: of the founding of Blaine, Missouri, and all of the
9:47
Speaker 4: interesting lore that goes along with that.
9:49
Speaker 2: If you guys haven't seen this Christopher.
9:50
Speaker 4: Guest film, it is absolutely a delight and kind of
9:53
Speaker 4: shows that sort of community spirit that you really can
9:57
Speaker 4: only find in small towns and the idea of getting,
10:00
Speaker 4: you know, a small group of folks to band together
10:03
Speaker 4: to do the impossible.
10:04
Speaker 2: In the film, it's it involves putting on a play.
10:07
Speaker 4: In this situation, it literally involves moving a barn physically.
10:11
Speaker 4: Three hundred and twenty eight people joined forces to move
10:16
Speaker 4: this barn and it became like it was it was
10:19
Speaker 4: an event in and of itself.
10:21
Speaker 1: Hmm. Yeah, they said, we are in a disaster situation.
10:27
Speaker 1: This started as a promotion to celebrate the centennial of
10:31
Speaker 1: the of Bruno. But on July thirtieth, nineteen eighty eight,
10:36
Speaker 1: more than four thousand people stopped by to help out
10:40
Speaker 1: the family farm because they needed They were worried that
10:44
Speaker 1: a flood was coming and they needed to move the
10:47
Speaker 1: barn to higher ground.
10:49
Speaker 4: Of Cording had experienced I believe a good bit of
10:51
Speaker 4: flooding already, and they were just it was kind of
10:53
Speaker 4: like starting to become untenable, so they just needed help.
10:57
Speaker 1: And Karen Austry, the we mentioned earlier, said this is
11:01
Speaker 1: something that hadn't been done before. They weren't using machines,
11:05
Speaker 1: all manpower. The three hundred and forty four neighbors eventually
11:10
Speaker 1: volunteered to move the barn. We're all in because that's
11:13
Speaker 1: another beautiful thing about small towns. Neighbors tend to help
11:16
Speaker 1: each other more often than they would in a city.
11:18
Speaker 1: A priest even stop by to bless the project, and
11:24
Speaker 1: one of the quotes was for doing something you've never
11:26
Speaker 1: done before, you better be praying.
11:29
Speaker 2: I can get behind that.
11:31
Speaker 4: And the number of volunteers fluctuates a little bit depending
11:33
Speaker 4: on the source. We've got three hundred and twenty eight
11:36
Speaker 4: in one source and three hundred and forty four on another,
11:38
Speaker 4: so just you know, about a dozen or so off,
11:40
Speaker 4: but we do know there were more than three hundred
11:43
Speaker 4: Bruno neighbors, the joined forces and arms, I guess to
11:48
Speaker 4: do this kindness for the Austrians. Mike Austrey's father, Hermann Austrie,
12:00
Speaker 4: served as I guess, the foreman in the situation, shouting
12:03
Speaker 4: through a bullhorn to kind of coordinate the movements of
12:05
Speaker 4: all of these folks, and each lift and each step
12:10
Speaker 4: over the course of the one hundred and fifteen foot
12:12
Speaker 4: journey were coordinated and called out like you know, I
12:17
Speaker 4: guess the guy calling the square dance or whatever. And
12:21
Speaker 4: it was a success. They successfully abandoned together and moved
12:25
Speaker 4: this barn to higher grounds to save the Austri's family
12:29
Speaker 4: farm from flooding.
12:30
Speaker 2: My Gostria was thrilled. He's quoted as saying it worked.
12:34
Speaker 2: It worked.
12:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he is the guy who had been kind
12:40
Speaker 1: of a head producer for this. He actually constructed his
12:44
Speaker 1: health the handles that everybody used and moving this barn,
12:48
Speaker 1: and a lot of people expected it to collapse just
12:51
Speaker 1: because barns are not Barnes are known for a lot
12:54
Speaker 1: of things, but none of those things are their mobility.
12:58
Speaker 5: And so.
13:00
Speaker 1: People were probably taking some bets on the side.
13:03
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, there was money change in hand, and Mike
13:06
Speaker 4: was like, where's my.
13:07
Speaker 2: Piece of the action?
13:08
Speaker 5: Right right?
13:08
Speaker 1: Mike said, those who are waiting for failure that day
13:11
Speaker 1: ended up losing cash. I could see money passing back
13:14
Speaker 1: and forth behind me. Can I have my cut?
13:16
Speaker 5: I said?
13:17
Speaker 1: There were a lot of lost bets that day. The Barn,
13:20
Speaker 1: as we're kind of establishing, belonged to Mike's parents, Herman
13:24
Speaker 1: and Donna Austry. They're in a farm just north of
13:27
Speaker 1: town when this happens, and they are keeping the faith.
13:32
Speaker 1: Herman Austrey is one hundred percent in his interviews, he's
13:37
Speaker 1: one hundred percent sure this will work. And he has
13:40
Speaker 1: a bit of a Noah esque trait to him because
13:44
Speaker 1: he is considering the successful movement of the barn a
13:49
Speaker 1: matter of faith. And he's in these quotations pointing out
13:52
Speaker 1: the sky saying I have faith in our maker. And
13:56
Speaker 1: the one thing that didn't go right for them, the
13:59
Speaker 1: one thing there's still a little bit miffed about is
14:01
Speaker 1: that the Guinness Book of World Records wasn't as impressed
14:05
Speaker 1: as they were.
14:06
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's a real shame they did submit
14:09
Speaker 4: this for a Guinness record. Packet of information surrounding this
14:14
Speaker 4: feat was submitted to Guinness Book of World Records, along
14:17
Speaker 4: with verification from Nebraska's Division of Weights and Measures, which
14:22
Speaker 4: I love, you know, to confirm that this was in
14:25
Speaker 4: fact all done with human muscle.
14:29
Speaker 2: However, it was rejected.
14:31
Speaker 4: The deputy editor of Guinness told them barn moving was
14:35
Speaker 4: quote not an activity which has shown itself to be
14:39
Speaker 4: of widespread interest. What have you seen some of the
14:43
Speaker 4: things that get Guinness records?
14:45
Speaker 1: Also, do you know the history of Guinness records. It's
14:48
Speaker 1: all about for people. It's complete. It was originally completely
14:52
Speaker 1: made for people who are getting sauced at bars to
14:55
Speaker 1: be able to prove their side of trivial arguments.
14:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the idea of the necessity for widespread interest
15:04
Speaker 2: is bonkers to me. I mean, isn't there a guy
15:06
Speaker 2: who holds the world record for like juggling apples while
15:10
Speaker 2: taking a bite of each apple the most? I mean,
15:13
Speaker 2: like it's all so niche Also, yeah, what's the deal?
15:16
Speaker 1: Maybe a different era in the Guinness regime because they
15:20
Speaker 1: do have a lot more specificity in world records and
15:24
Speaker 1: they'll let you do things like person who has the
15:26
Speaker 1: most world records as a world record, so they'll get
15:30
Speaker 1: meta with it.
15:31
Speaker 5: I don't know they got rob is all I'm saying.
15:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, a team Austria on this one. I mean moving
15:36
Speaker 1: a two twenty thousand pound bar and one hundred and
15:39
Speaker 1: fifteen feet is pretty impressive. And look they did this
15:44
Speaker 1: not once but twice. The family raised the bar again
15:49
Speaker 1: just a year later to add a block to the
15:51
Speaker 1: base and this was a way easier operation because he
15:54
Speaker 1: just had to lift it up. You didn't have to
15:56
Speaker 1: actually move it around. It's cool, though it's such a
16:00
Speaker 1: a community building exercise. In some ways it reminds me
16:04
Speaker 1: of well, of course barn raising right in some communities.
16:07
Speaker 1: It also reminds me of the thing that kids used
16:10
Speaker 1: to do in gym class where you have the big
16:12
Speaker 1: parachute and you, oh of course raise it up together
16:16
Speaker 1: and then you run under it.
16:18
Speaker 2: And it's almost meant to be like a team building exers.
16:20
Speaker 2: That's what I'm your children. Yeah it is, No, it's funny.
16:24
Speaker 4: Never quite thought of it like that, but we should
16:26
Speaker 4: probably mention the obvious here. They were corn farmers. Yes,
16:30
Speaker 4: that that is what makes it semi corn related.
16:32
Speaker 2: We do have a corn content.
16:34
Speaker 1: And if this feels too much like a tease of
16:36
Speaker 1: the corn cob, don't worry. You can check out stuff
16:39
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. We have an episode
16:41
Speaker 1: about how corn got into everything in America. It's a
16:44
Speaker 1: little bit of a different vibe. But that'll that'll, that'll
16:48
Speaker 1: feed your corn craving. If you want to know Horn
16:50
Speaker 1: about corn. We know you crave corn. We know you
16:53
Speaker 1: crave corn. We also well, at least we hope that
16:58
Speaker 1: you have some questions about names of towns in Nebraska,
17:04
Speaker 1: particularly the capital, which is named after that Lincoln, you know,
17:09
Speaker 1: the famous amateur wrestler, Abraham Lincoln.
17:12
Speaker 2: But a good reach on him.
17:13
Speaker 5: He had a good reach.
17:14
Speaker 1: He also jumped out of windows to avoid voting, which
17:17
Speaker 1: I don't remember.
17:18
Speaker 4: Do you think he did like a commando role when
17:20
Speaker 4: he landed after jumping through the window and that stood
17:23
Speaker 4: up and just sauntered away.
17:24
Speaker 5: I hope. So he always struck me. His spry especially
17:27
Speaker 5: very much day.
17:28
Speaker 4: It's a good word for Lincoln, old spry abe Lincoln.
17:31
Speaker 4: But yeah, named after him, but not in the way
17:33
Speaker 4: you might think. At least three dozen counties, towns, and
17:36
Speaker 4: cities are named after this amateur wrestler, sprightly, young upstart. But,
17:41
Speaker 4: as Jordan Pascal writes for the Lincoln Journal Star, while
17:45
Speaker 4: most places were named to honor one of the country's
17:48
Speaker 4: most revered presidents, Lincoln, Nebraska had a bit more of
17:51
Speaker 4: a backhanded way of honoring and heavy italics quotation fingers him.
17:58
Speaker 4: In fact, there were some ballot icians who attempted to
18:01
Speaker 4: use Lincoln's name as a way to dissuade constituents from.
18:05
Speaker 2: Moving the capital from Omaha.
18:09
Speaker 4: So it was like a political play capitalizing on people's
18:12
Speaker 4: dislike of Lincoln in that part of the country, because
18:14
Speaker 4: he certainly was a divisive figure well despite being known
18:17
Speaker 4: as a great unifier, there's no question he rubbed some
18:20
Speaker 4: folks the wrong way. And Omaha, by the way, had
18:24
Speaker 4: been the territorial government seat since eighteen fifty four.
18:27
Speaker 1: Right, so at this time things are in flux as
18:30
Speaker 1: they're figuring out modern state borders and statehood. We go
18:34
Speaker 1: to the governor of the territorial area at this time,
18:38
Speaker 1: Thomas Cumming. He hailed from Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across
18:43
Speaker 1: the Missouri River from Omaha, and he was a huge
18:46
Speaker 1: proponent of keeping the capital in Omaha, but nearly twice
18:51
Speaker 1: the number of people lived south of the Platte River,
18:54
Speaker 1: and they all generally thought the capital should be closer
18:59
Speaker 1: to the center of the population, right, build the build
19:02
Speaker 1: the capital where the most people are, right, or at
19:05
Speaker 1: least make it central to them. Yeah, it makes sense.
19:08
Speaker 1: And so the folks south of the Platte River are
19:12
Speaker 1: getting increasingly livid because they're saying, we're not being treated fairly,
19:16
Speaker 1: We're not getting proper representation in the legislature. So for
19:20
Speaker 1: more than a decade, for thirteen years, folks were beefed
19:24
Speaker 1: up over the location of the capital. And in eighteen
19:28
Speaker 1: sixty seven, just like they're just like their later Nebraska
19:34
Speaker 1: residents would do. In eighteen sixty seven, a group said, well,
19:38
Speaker 1: let's move the capital.
19:39
Speaker 2: What is it?
19:40
Speaker 5: But another barn I.
19:41
Speaker 4: Always wonder, man, I mean, is it just like kind
19:43
Speaker 4: of like I don't know, bragging rights as to what
19:47
Speaker 4: city is the capital, or they're like, maybe there's economic concerns.
19:51
Speaker 2: I guess they think, yeah, that probably makes the most sense.
19:54
Speaker 1: I think it's it's economic. It'll often come to a
19:58
Speaker 1: constituency wearing the the sheep skin of you know, local
20:03
Speaker 1: pride or historical significance. But usually when you get to
20:08
Speaker 1: the back rooms, they're talking money.
20:10
Speaker 2: They're talking money, they're talking power.
20:13
Speaker 4: Because if anytime there's a place that's the seat of government,
20:16
Speaker 4: I imagine that local politicians are going to wield a little
20:19
Speaker 4: bit more, you know, say.
20:20
Speaker 2: In the way things go down in the state.
20:23
Speaker 1: And you think legislative arguments can get in the halls
20:27
Speaker 1: of power can get weird nowadays. Folks, during the last
20:32
Speaker 1: territorial legislature, people were arguing so intently about this that
20:37
Speaker 1: they started like flexing their guns.
20:41
Speaker 2: At each other fisticuffs. Yeah, and just say, oh, that's
20:44
Speaker 2: a great point.
20:46
Speaker 5: Why don't you say it again?
20:48
Speaker 4: And folks living south of the Platte River who are
20:51
Speaker 4: referred to as platters or south platters, because again there
20:55
Speaker 4: was this kind of othering, this sort of like us
20:57
Speaker 4: in them mentality, they talked about literally seating and joining
21:01
Speaker 4: Kansas instead, So they're talking about the seating joining Kansas.
21:11
Speaker 4: When the issue came to a vote, there was not
21:13
Speaker 4: a whole lot of protest for removal from the Northerners
21:17
Speaker 4: except for one senator, one loan senator in Oma.
21:24
Speaker 1: Yes, and here we introduce J. N. H. Patrick you know,
21:28
Speaker 1: I'm torn about this, but I always I know this
21:31
Speaker 1: is dumb, but I always found it kind of cool
21:35
Speaker 1: when people have instead of a first name, they just
21:38
Speaker 1: have three initials.
21:39
Speaker 2: Three is a bit much for me.
21:42
Speaker 5: Two.
21:42
Speaker 2: I like three. I don't know, it feels a little pretentious.
21:45
Speaker 5: That is four for me.
21:47
Speaker 1: Three, but four four is like, at some point you
21:50
Speaker 1: need to make better choices.
21:51
Speaker 2: Agree to disagree.
21:52
Speaker 5: I love it.
21:53
Speaker 2: That's very true. It is classic. That did, no question
21:55
Speaker 2: about it. It's as a matter of like what the
21:56
Speaker 2: threshold is for you, We'll just.
21:58
Speaker 5: Call it Patrick, Senator Patrick.
22:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, he says, all right, I'm going to make one
22:04
Speaker 1: last hail Mary to keep the capital in my city.
22:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to propose a different name for the new
22:10
Speaker 1: seat of government. The legislatures at the time, the groundswell
22:14
Speaker 1: of popular support was to build this new capital and
22:18
Speaker 1: call it, in a burst of creativity, Capital City. But
22:22
Speaker 1: Patrick raises a point I kind of agree with. He
22:25
Speaker 1: says that name is trash. He specifically says it is
22:29
Speaker 1: quote inexplicably clumsy and ugly. We should change the name
22:33
Speaker 1: to Lincoln after you know that president who just died.
22:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, he did, in fact do that. He thought that
22:43
Speaker 4: the promoter of the bill for a new capital, a
22:45
Speaker 4: Senator Mills Reeves of Nebraska City, might take issue with
22:52
Speaker 4: that because of his status as a former slaveholder and
22:56
Speaker 4: a big time opponent of old honest Abe. He thought
23:00
Speaker 4: this would rattle him and cause him to oppose his
23:03
Speaker 4: own bill, because racists are kind of single issue people
23:07
Speaker 4: at certain points of the arguments, you know what I mean.
23:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the assumption here, the calculus makes sense. He
23:15
Speaker 1: assumes that this guy Reeves will from Nebraska City, will
23:20
Speaker 1: hate Lincoln so so much that he will oppose his
23:24
Speaker 1: own bill, because Reeves was on record as having dislike
23:29
Speaker 1: the name of Lincoln more than Satan himself, according to
23:33
Speaker 1: people who hung out with Reeves. But there's a surprise.
23:37
Speaker 1: Things did not go the way our buddy, Senator Patrick
23:41
Speaker 1: planned Reeves said, I'm not offended, you know what, I think.
23:45
Speaker 1: It's a great idea. Thanks Pat. And the bill passed.
23:49
Speaker 1: So they took the village of Lancaster, which had been
23:51
Speaker 1: founded fairly recently at that time, in eighteen fifty six.
23:55
Speaker 1: They said, this will be the new capital. We'll rename
23:58
Speaker 1: it Lincoln. If you go to folk like historian Jim
24:01
Speaker 1: McKee you'll hear the following quote. It's definitely a unique situation.
24:05
Speaker 1: Everyone assumes it was a great honor, but it was
24:08
Speaker 1: a political trick that backfired. If you ask one thousand people,
24:13
Speaker 1: they'll all say it's named in honor of Lincoln. But
24:16
Speaker 1: that is only half the truth.
24:18
Speaker 4: And I mean, to be fair, it's not like they
24:20
Speaker 4: named it Lincoln sucks or something, you know. I mean,
24:23
Speaker 4: in history will look at it as having been named
24:26
Speaker 4: after Lincoln as an honor, because why wouldn't it have been?
24:32
Speaker 4: And it doesn't really read as a dish and unless
24:35
Speaker 4: you were really into the minutia of this or know
24:37
Speaker 4: what the purpose was, and it sort of becomes irrelevant
24:40
Speaker 4: after a time.
24:40
Speaker 2: But as that sure, why they didn't ever bother changing.
24:43
Speaker 1: It's still better than Capital City. What what a bad name?
24:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, sounds like the name of like some generic Washington
24:52
Speaker 4: DC and like a RPG game of some kind.
24:56
Speaker 1: It's yeah, It's like if if I were making an
24:59
Speaker 1: album and I I called my band band and I
25:02
Speaker 1: called my album album.
25:04
Speaker 2: Right, Well, actually, yeah, oh you think that would work? No,
25:07
Speaker 2: it depends.
25:08
Speaker 4: I mean, there is a band called Girls whose first
25:11
Speaker 4: album is called album, and then there's the bands, and there,
25:15
Speaker 4: of course there's the bands. But the problem with things
25:17
Speaker 4: like that is you can really only do it once,
25:19
Speaker 4: you know, and then it just becomes like, yeah, you wouldn't.
25:22
Speaker 5: Be down with Capital City too.
25:24
Speaker 1: I'm glad they cut this off at the pass or
25:26
Speaker 1: nipped it in the bud.
25:28
Speaker 4: So I teased another story about folks disagreeing and it
25:33
Speaker 4: caused them some maybe redrawing of boundaries, or at least
25:36
Speaker 4: the potential for that.
25:37
Speaker 2: Why don't we move on to the story of.
25:40
Speaker 4: The Nebraska city that hated each other so much that
25:43
Speaker 4: they ceased being a city.
25:45
Speaker 2: How does that even happen?
25:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll go to a city called Seneca, Nebraska,
25:53
Speaker 1: the Thomas County town of Seneca. According to our pals again,
25:57
Speaker 1: Delana Lefever's was in corporate in eighteen eighty eight, but
26:02
Speaker 1: quite recently it dissolved. In twenty fourteen, the entire city
26:07
Speaker 1: broke up because of a year of violent disputes and acrimony.
26:11
Speaker 1: You think your HOA is a problem folks? This they
26:14
Speaker 1: got nothing on this. As a matter of fact, don't
26:16
Speaker 1: tell your hoa about this story because we don't want,
26:20
Speaker 1: you know, we don't want to encourage this behavior.
26:23
Speaker 4: No, we certainly don't. And this was at least the
26:26
Speaker 4: initial disagreements. One of several involved horses, the idea of
26:31
Speaker 4: keeping horses in town limits. There is apparently an ordinance
26:35
Speaker 4: that prevented.
26:36
Speaker 1: That, and so it's yeah, it's an unincorporated community. Now
26:40
Speaker 1: if you look over it at stats, it's classified as
26:44
Speaker 1: a village. But it's very important to remember this community,
26:50
Speaker 1: like so many other communities in the Great Interior of
26:53
Speaker 1: the United States, has been in a population declined for
26:57
Speaker 1: a while. So we say the entire city breaking up,
27:01
Speaker 1: we're talking about thirty people.
27:04
Speaker 5: Now.
27:04
Speaker 1: It was thirty three a few years back, and now
27:06
Speaker 1: it's down to thirty. They were on the way down
27:08
Speaker 1: already because of the closing of infrastructure like the railroad roundhouse.
27:14
Speaker 1: And we do know the median age of people in
27:17
Speaker 1: town was around fifty five, a little north of fifty
27:22
Speaker 1: five years old. There are there were only three residents
27:25
Speaker 1: under the age of eighteen and twenty ten. So if
27:29
Speaker 1: you look at the details, this starts to sound a
27:31
Speaker 1: lot less like, you know, a huge city of thousands
27:35
Speaker 1: of people breaking up, and a little more like thirty
27:40
Speaker 1: people who decided not to get along.
27:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean, you know, the age thing. I
27:44
Speaker 4: guess makes sense. This seems like a pretty old school dispute, like.
27:48
Speaker 5: We put my horse.
27:49
Speaker 2: Wow, Well, well yeah, were they for it or against it?
27:52
Speaker 2: Like which side?
27:53
Speaker 5: You know?
27:53
Speaker 4: I've got to know more and I actually I'm very
27:56
Speaker 4: excited to check out this radio Lab episode all about it,
27:59
Speaker 4: and you too. I guess the last one for today
28:01
Speaker 4: is I had no idea there was once a volcano.
28:06
Speaker 4: According to the National Park Service, in Nebraska, on August
28:10
Speaker 4: twenty fourth, eighteen oh four, Clark of Lewis and Clark
28:13
Speaker 4: Fame explored the one hundred and eighty or one hundred
28:16
Speaker 4: and ninety foot bluff along the west side of the
28:19
Speaker 4: Missouri River and wrote, those bluffs appear to have been
28:23
Speaker 4: laterly on fire, and at this time is too hot
28:27
Speaker 4: for a man to bare his hand in the.
28:29
Speaker 2: Earth at any depth.
28:31
Speaker 4: Gress appearance of coal, an immense quantity of cabalt, or
28:36
Speaker 4: a crystallized substance which answers its description is on the
28:40
Speaker 4: face of the bluff, so basically he's describing a sulfuric
28:46
Speaker 4: smell and like deposits of a volcanic type rock.
28:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and later later explorers would wonder if This was
28:57
Speaker 1: indeed of volcano folks like Nicolette, just one initial away
29:02
Speaker 1: from genius.
29:03
Speaker 5: There.
29:04
Speaker 1: Jan theorized that the decomposition of beds of iron pirates
29:09
Speaker 1: pyrites in contact with water created heat that was capable
29:13
Speaker 1: of igniting other combustible stuff. But again, the name stuck,
29:19
Speaker 1: you know, and sometimes the names persist longer than the facts.
29:24
Speaker 1: So by the late eighteen hundreds, this bluff was known
29:27
Speaker 1: as the Ionia Volcano, named after the nearby town of Ionia.
29:32
Speaker 1: And that's a cool claim to fame for them.
29:34
Speaker 2: It's pretty cool.
29:34
Speaker 4: I guess you know, when you actually call something a
29:37
Speaker 4: volcano the Ionia volcano, that's a little bit misleading.
29:41
Speaker 2: I maybe would have named it something for more like
29:43
Speaker 2: Ionia volcano rock.
29:45
Speaker 5: You know, Yeah, I hear you.
29:47
Speaker 1: For the accuracy, I would keep the phrase Ionia volcano
29:51
Speaker 1: and just redefine it as a weird euphemism for.
29:54
Speaker 2: Something I like that.
29:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, the old Ionia volcano, if you know what I mean,
29:59
Speaker 1: because ad if you know what I mean at the
30:01
Speaker 1: end of any sentence makes stuff sound so bizarre.
30:04
Speaker 2: Oh, no question about it.
30:05
Speaker 4: But unfortunately, if you went to this spot today, you're
30:09
Speaker 4: not going to see anything like this because in eighteen
30:11
Speaker 4: seventy eight, the Missouri River flooded and the bluff in
30:15
Speaker 4: question was submerged and parts of the quote unquote volcano
30:20
Speaker 4: fell into the river, never to be seen again. The
30:22
Speaker 4: same flood also damaged the town that it was named after, Ionia,
30:26
Speaker 4: which was later unfortunately completely abandoned.
30:30
Speaker 1: However, we are not abandoning you, fellow ridiculous historians. There's
30:36
Speaker 1: much more to get to about Nebraska, perhaps for a
30:39
Speaker 1: future episode of whoopsal Tangents. For now, we are going
30:43
Speaker 1: to continue our journey. Thank you so much to you
30:47
Speaker 1: folks for tuning in and joining us. Thanks, of course
30:50
Speaker 1: also to our research associate and super producer mister Max Williams.
30:54
Speaker 2: That's right, Alex Williams, who produced this theme.
30:57
Speaker 4: Eves, Jeffcoates, and Christopher Hasiota here in spirit.
31:01
Speaker 5: Aj Bahamas Jacobs.
31:04
Speaker 1: The singular man that I go to for any explanation
31:08
Speaker 1: about the Constitution, Sorry, scotis also Rachel big Spinach Lance,
31:13
Speaker 1: who is eternally gracious when I ask her dumb questions
31:17
Speaker 1: about underwater explosions.
31:19
Speaker 2: We got to get her back on the show. Also Hughes.
31:21
Speaker 2: Thanks to Jonathan Strickland, the quist.
31:24
Speaker 5: Who will be here to the show.
31:26
Speaker 1: Ye speaking speaking of weird, I wonder if is he
31:29
Speaker 1: the kind of guy that would help us move a barn.
31:31
Speaker 2: I think you would. We'll see you next time, folks.
31:41
Speaker 4: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
31:45
Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.