April 2021 • Nebraskaland 43
establish a resident herd. In 2020, the state had about 290
sheep in the Pine Ridge and the Wildcat Hills.
1982 - Platte River State Park offi cially opened in the bluff s
above the river for which it was named.
1986 - Calamus Reservoir, a Bureau of Reclamation
irrigation reservoir completed on the Calamus River near
Burwell in 1984, opened.
1986 - Ten cabooses, donated by the Union Pacifi c Railroad
and converted into cabins, opened to the public at Two Rivers
State Recreation Area.
1987 - The new Niobrara State Park opened, featuring 20
cabins, a campground and more. The old park site, acquired
in 1930, was abandoned because of rising water levels in the
Missouri River following the construction of Lewis and Clark
Lake.
1987 - Arthur Bowring Ranch State Historical Park, a
working Sandhills cattle ranch near Merriman, opened.
Former U.S. Senator Eve Bowring left the 7,202 acre Bar 99
ranch to the Commission in memory of her husband when
she died in 1985.
1989 - Lightning sparked a wildfi re July 8, later named the
Fort Robinson Fire after it burned nearly 50,000 acres of the
Pine Ridge, the largest fi re in recorded history at the time.
Rains that fell and the following spring washed tons of ash
into the White River, Soldier Creek and Carter P. Johnson
Lake, killing nearly all of the trout.
1990 - A new RV campground opened at Chadron State Park.
1991 - Eugene T. Mahoney State Park opened along the
Platte River between Lincoln and Omaha. Land acquisition
and development, funded in large part by donations, had
begun in 1986.
1991 - Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park opened.
Backpacking on snowshoes at Indian Cave State Park in February of 1971. JON FARRAR, NEBRASKALAND
