NSHS
RG2158-2080
NSHS
7294-7017
NSHS NSHS NSHS NSHS
RG2 RG2 RG2 RG2158
158 158- 158-2080
2080 2080 2080
The Lincoln Tree Planters minor league baseball team in 1907. Below, cartoon depicting Lincoln sportswriter "Cy" Sherman
reflecting on Nebraska nicknames, from the 1939 Almanac for Nebraskans published by the Federal Writers Project.
account, the man responded, "Oh, everything is gone up
there. The grasshoppers have eaten the grain up, the potato
bugs ate the 'taters all up, and now the inhabitants are
eating the bugs to keep alive." Some newspaperman heard
the comment and published it as a joke. Other sources
attribute the nickname to the Nighthawk, a bird with a
voracious appetite for bugs.
MacMurphy argued that the Territorial Pioneers and other
groups should promote "Tree Planters" as the official state
nickname "and say goodbye to the Bug-eaters forever."
Their efforts succeeded when the legislature, on April 4,
1895, passed a resolution declaring Nebraska "The Tree
Planter State" in honor of its role as the originator of Arbor
Day. Nevertheless, the University of Nebraska football team
used the "bug eater"
nickname until about
1900 when Lincoln
sportswriter Charles H.
"Cy" Sherman started
referring to the team
as "the Cornhuskers,"
a name that quickly
caught on. At that time
harvesting corn by hand,
"corn husking," was a
central feature of Nebraska life; today it is a quaint and
dimly-remembered remnant of our agricultural past. ■
James E. Potter (1945-2016) was the senior research
historian at the Nebraska State Historical Society.
NSHS NSHS NSHS NSHS
729 729 729 7294
70
4
70
4-70 4-7017
17 17 17
lif d i i i d
OCTOBER 2016 • NEBRASKAland 15
