Nebraskaland

June 2023 Nebraskaland

NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.

Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1500361

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34 Nebraskaland • June 2023 his is our experience crossing Platte River; the meanest of rivers — broad, shallow, fi shless, snakeful, quicksand bars and muddy waters — the stage rumbles over the bottom like on a bed of rock; yet haste must be made to eff ect a crossing, else you disappear beneath its turbid waters, and your doom is certain," so reads an 1862 emigrant diary quoted by historian Merrill Mattes in his landmark book, The Great Platte River Road. Mattes writes that some travelers referred to the "Coast of the Platte" because the broad river on its sandy bed looked almost like an ocean shoreline in the distance. He quotes a traveler named James Evans who saw the river swollen with spring rains and snowmelt: "From the sandhills, it had the appearance of a great inland By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska 'T 1886 map showing where to ford the Platte. HISTORY NEBRASKA, RG2102-1-5 Crossing the Platte, 'the meanest of rivers'

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