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Show FIFTY YEARS A STATE. Nebraska has just finished celebrating celebrat-ing its semi-centennial, and the event is of more than passing interest to many citizens of Salt Lake, some of whom were born there, while others lived in the eastern fringe of counties when the state was formally admitted into the union, with David Butler as governor and General John M. Thayer and Thomas Thom-as TV. Tipton as Tinted Stutes senators. A ouderful "transformation has taken place in the last half century. In 167 the Union Pacific railroad had not. been completed and the old-time freighters were still cracking their whips over the backs of unwilling mules and oxen toiling across the plains with food and merchandise for the frontier army posts and settlements. The Missouri river was one of the groat highways of commerce, "St. Joe" being the metropolis metrop-olis of the big valley. Omaha was practically prac-tically dead and Kansas City had not yet eh own any signs of life. What few people lived in Nebraska were located in the counties lying along the "Big ?vluddy " or those immediately inland. Fort Kearney was tho outpost of civi-li.ation civi-li.ation far as the now state was j concerned and many of the people re-: re-: siding thereabouts lacked considerable of being civilized. But the last spike was driven nn the ; Unj-vn Pacific in 1S1P and the Burling- t-u eat'-ved the state about that time, 'i i.c cUM-ans ot the civil war had been coming in since o'i and now there was a str'-aiii ot immigration from the old wurld and central Nebraska rapidly filled up. There were hardships to be endured, of coarse. Fifty years ago there was a drouth and grasshopper raid. No crops were raised and corn bread was the chief article of diet, the settlers driving to Missouri for the corn. The men and women who came to the state in the early seventies had their experience iu 1374, when the hot winds swept over both Kansas and Nebraska Ne-braska and the grasshoppers again swooped down and finished the work of .lest ruction so far as the crops were concerned. That wa3 Nebraska's last serious setback. set-back. In recent years it has developed into a great grain, stock and fruit country coun-try and Omaha is one of the principal market cities of the whole United States. It is one of the more progressive progres-sive commonwealths, with churches and school houses abounding on every hand and the pioneers who still remain "this side of Jordan's wave" have reason to be proud of what they accomplished. |