This Week In Nebraska History

1871 — Lincolnites discussed paving the streets at the University of Nebraska.

1881 — A thief in Howard County hit a farm, stole two buffalo robes and a scoop shovel and milked all the cows.

1891 — A committee from Bethany and University Place met and recommended that bonds in the amount of $12,000 be issued for the construction of ward schools in the two villages.

1901 — Lincoln City Engineer Adna Dobson was appointed state engineer at a salary of $1,800 a year.

1911 — According to the Omaha Bee newspaper, 31 murders had been committed in Omaha in the previous 22 months.

1921 — C.C. Munson, Lincoln pioneer who helped organize and build Cotner College, died in Los Angeles.

1931 — The director of the U.S. Veterans Bureau announced that 6,900 Nebraska World War I veterans had received more than $2.5 million in bonus loan payments at the close of business at the bureau in Omaha.

1941 — The Consumers Public Power District of Columbus purchased the Nebraska electric service properties of the Iowa-Nebraska Light and Power Co. for $19,592,000. Iowa-Nebraska had served Lincoln and nearby communities.

1951 — Many residents of eastern Nebraska evacuated their homes as floodwaters covered acres of land, threatening crops and livestock.

1961 — A wildcat oil well named the No. 1 Kennedy-Johnson tapped a new field in Kimball County. The beneficiaries of the fi nd were not U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson but landowner Wayne Kennedy and S.D. Johnson, who bought a large percentage of the mineral rights.

1971 — For the second time in less than two months, financially troubled John F. Kennedy College at Wahoo lost a building to fire. This time it was Old Main, built in 1903. In February, West Hall had burned. The buildings were part of the former Luther College campus taken over when Kennedy opened in 1965. Snow fell over most of Nebraska, with 12 inches at Imperial. It forced cancellation of horse racing at Grand Island’s Fonner Park.

1981 — After getting word that federal funds for a planned ball field had been axed, Hallam residents decided to raise the money themselves, beginning with a benefit dance and raffle.

1991 — Farmers planned to plant their biggest corn crop since 1945. A spring blizzard struck, leaving two dead, dozens of schools closed across Nebraska and a brief closing of 140 miles of Interstate 80.

2001 — Nearly 133 years after he ended his war with the United States and signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, Red Cloud was honored by the state of Nebraska, which inducted him into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. An Oglala Lakota, he was born in western Nebraska May 1821 and died at Pine Ridge Agency on Dec. 10, 1909. Idaho growers donated 22,000 pounds of russet potatoes to the Food Bank of Lincoln for hunger relief.

This article originally ran on journalstar.com.