Nebraskaland

58 Nebraskaland • April 2023 THE LAST STOP If you spend any time perusing online maps featuring satellite photos, or you're one who opts for the window seat when you fly, you've surely seen what is a growing trend — rooftop advertising. But people were spelling things out on the ground to be read from the air long before the Internet came along. The first time I stumbled across it was on a photo flight that took me over Wagon Train Lake State Recreation Area near Hickman. There, spelled out in trees in the wildlife management area on the southeastern corner of the area, was the year the trees were planted — 1967. I laughed, knowing the staff in what was then known as the Resource Services Division had a sense of humor. Those trees at Wagon Train have grown up, and others have grown up beneath them, making the year hard to read. But if you turn the history slider back in Google Earth every time I fly over that corner of the lake, I smile. I saw some more creativity in 2020 while I was flying between Calamus Reservoir and Goose Lake. Spelled out in cedar trees on the hillside behind the house on a Sandhills ranch was "Sostad Forest." Jon Sostad, of Kearney, said he couldn't recall if it was his father, Dale's, idea, or a plan hatched by the people planting trees on the property in the 1990s. I laughed again in 2009 when I was capturing aerial photos of the construction of Maple Creek Reservoir near Leigh. Soil was needed to build up Highway 91, which would serve as a sediment dam protecting the lake, and plans called for it to be taken from a borrow pit along the road. But Game and Parks Commission staff helping design fish habitat in the lake told Matt Pruss of Pruss Excavation in Dodge, which was doing the dirt work on the site, they didn't want a simple, square pit: they wanted an undulated bottom that would be more fish friendly. The request gave Pruss an idea, and that night at home, he "spent way too long on the computer" designing letters nearly 300 feet high, 150 feet wide and 10 feet deep that spelled out "Pruss" in the lakebed. When he presented his plan to the powers that be, they loved the idea. Pruss heard more than once from those who viewed his creation from Highway 91 that the name was up-side-down. But the tech-savvy businessman didn't intend for it to be read from the road. It would, after all, be under water. He knew which way was up when it came to maps, and hoped new aerial or satellite imagery would be captured before the lake filled. It was, in June of 2009, and for a time, Google Maps and Earth displayed the name. It can still be read using the time slider in Earth. Also a fisherman, Pruss knew his creation would still be viewed by anglers looking for contour maps of Maple Creek. "I knew there would be a lake map and knew it would be impossible to miss that," Pruss said. "I figured I'd leave a mark on the world that way." Well played, Mr. Pruss. Well Played. By Eric Fowler AERIAL HUMOR

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