Western Nebraska: The Panhandle

Western Nebraska is called the Panhandle because of the way it looks on a map, a long rectangular handle projecting west from the broader body of the state. It is a different world from the corn country of eastern Nebraska. The annual rainfall here averages only about fifteen or sixteen inches in places, barely enough to sustain the native mixed-grass prairie. The topography shifts from rolling High Plains to breaks and canyons and the occasional butte or bluff that reminds you the Rockies are not far.

The Panhandle was Lakota Sioux territory through most of the nineteenth century. The great Lakota bands, the Oglala and Brule in particular, ranged across this country following the bison herds that sustained their civilization. The Oregon Trail cut directly through that world beginning in the eighteen forties, and the conflict between emigrant traffic and Lakota sovereignty was one of the defining tensions of the era. Fort Laramie, just across the Wyoming line to the west, was the center of diplomatic negotiations and military pressure that ultimately displaced the Lakota from these plains.

The homestead era arrived later here than in eastern Nebraska. The semi-arid climate defeated early dry-land farmers who arrived expecting conditions like those back east. It was the combination of federal irrigation projects and the sugar beet industry that finally created a stable agricultural economy in the Panhandle in the early twentieth century.

Scottsbluff today serves as the regional hub for a sparsely populated but productive agricultural corner of the country. The area grows sugar beets, dry edible beans, and corn, raises cattle, and draws visitors to the trail landmarks and the high bluffs that are among the most dramatic geological features between the Missouri River and the Front Range. The Panhandle is easy to underestimate if you are only passing through. It has been at the center of American history several times over.