The Nebraska Sandhills

 

General Works:

917.828 Jan
Janovy, John, Jr. Keith County Journal. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978.

Considered a classic work of American natural history, the focus is on the inhabitants of the edge of the Sandhills, of waterways and rock canyons.

507.782 Joh
Johnsgard, Paul A. This fragile land: A natural history of the Nebraska Sandhills. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

The most thorough guide to the regions, habitats, ecology and plants, birds, wildlife and insects of the Sandhills. With line drawings, maps, and habitat profiles. By a world renowned ornithologist who loves the Sandhills.

551.375 qCon
Bleed, Ann and Charles Flowerday, editors. An Atlas of the Sand Hills. Lincoln: Conservation and Survey Division, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1990 (Second Edition).

This is a collection of essays and maps by experts in a variety of fields, exploring natural features, geology, water and other natural resources, and human use.

978.2 q Mcl
McIntosh, Charles Baron. The Nebraska Sand Hills: The human landscape. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.

A scholarly work with many sketch maps, this is our most comprehensive guide to understanding and exploring the cultural history of the Nebraska Sandhills in geographical context.

978.273 Jon
Jones, Stephen R. The Last Prairie. A Sandhills Journal. Camden: Ragged Mountain Press/McGraw Hill, 2000.

A celebration of the history and natural history of the Sandhills in the form of a personal journal.

338.176 Yos
Yost, Nellie Snyder. The Call of the Range: The Story of the Nebraska Stock Growers Association. Denver: Sage Books, 1966.

While not about the Sandhills as such, this book, written for the Nebraska Stock Growers Association, recounts much Sandhills history and introduces issues and events encountered in the Sandhills ranch memoirs.

Histories, biographies and memoirs:

B Sa54s
Mari Sandoz. Old Jules. Boston: Little, Brown, 1935.

Mari Sandoz’s portrait of her irascible but indomitable father established her as great writer. Jules’ friendships with old mountain men and Indians, his land promotion, his feuds with the weather and his neighbors, and the conflict between ranchers and settlers make this, as Mari said "a biography of a community… the upper Niobrara country in western Nebraska."

810.81 San 1992
Mari Sandoz. Hostiles and friendlies. Selected short writings of Mari Sandoz. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959.

This collection includes "The Kinkaider Comes and Goes", "Sandhill Sundays" and some short fiction about Sandhills life.

338.176 Ric
Richards, Bartlett, Jr. with Ruth Van Ackeren, Bartlett Richards: Nebraska Sandhills Cattleman. Lincoln: The Nebraska State Historical Society, 1980.

Bartlett Richards Sr. was probably Nebraska’s best known, or, to some, most notorious early, open range rancher. One of Old Jules Sandoz’s antagonists, he built the old Spade Ranch into one of the great Sandhills ranches. He fought impractical land laws and government regulations associated with the anti-fencing law of 1885 and the Kinkaid Act, feuded with Theodore Roosevelt—an undocumented story related that Roosevelt told Richards to his face that he would put him in a penitentiary—and died while serving a federal term in the Adams County jail. The book, mainly written by Richard’s son, documents important and controversial issues of Sandhills history.

B B55v
VanAkeren, Ruth and Robert M. Howard. Lawrence Bixby: Preserver of the Old Spade Ranch. Caxton Printers (and) The Nebraska State Historical Society, 1995.

Bixby, who began work on the old Spade Ranch while its founder was in jail, held the ranch together and made it a successful working ranch in the modern era. Bixby helped restore the reputation of the Spades’ founder, and saw the ranch entered on the National Register of Historic Places. Bixby died in 1982.

978.227 Bla
Black, Roe R. The Horseshoe-Bar Ranch: Remembering a Prairie Childhood. Introduction by Robert Manley, Foreward and Afterward by Jon Farrar. Lincoln: Media Publishing, 1985.

An autobiographical essay about growing up on a ranch that straddled the Dismal River in the years 1900-1912, with an introduction by the (then) Director of the Nebraska State Historical Society.

B C769
Cook, Harold J. Tales of the O4 Ranch. Recollections of Harold J. Cook, 1887-1909. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1968.

Harold Cook was the son of frontiersman James H. Cook, who established the 04 Ranch, later renamed the Agate Springs Ranch, on the eastern edge of the High Plains and the western edge of the Sandhills, on land containing perhaps the best fossil deposit of Tertiary (Miocene) mammals ever found. Harold grew up around Indians, old frontiersmen, cattlemen and famous paleontologists.

978.274 Spi
Spindler, Will Henry. Rim of the Sandhills: A True Picture of the Old Holt County Horsethief-Vigilante Days. Mitchell, S.D.: Educator Supply Co., 1941.

A family memoir and local history that includes local stories of assorted horsethieves and bad men, including Kid Wade and Doc Middleton and the vigilantes.

B D2853m
McKelvie, Martha. Sandhills Essie. Philadelphia: Dorrance and co., 1964.

The story of Essie Davis, a genuine Sandhills character, who, widowed after a few months of marriage, overcame many crises and built the OLO ranch into a successful modern ranch. An admiring biography by her neighbor Martha McKelvie, wife of the former governor.

B M8492
Moss, Ira. The Chosen Land: A Sandhills Life.  Lincoln: Word Services, 1979.

An autobiography that recounts growing up on the old Sunnyside ranch, service in World War I, with personal perspectives on Sandhills life and travels elsewhere.

978.273 Mon
Monahan, Earl H. with Robert M. Howard. Sandhill Horizons: A Story of the Monahan Ranch and Other History of the Area. Alliance: Rader’s Place, 1987.

A family history of the Monahan ranch in Grant, Cherry and Hooker counties from the 1880s to the 1980s. An elegantly produced and especially well illustrated ranch history that includes the broader local history, the local community and its residents. It recounts social, legal and technological changes on the ranch.

 

This is just a sampling of works on the Sandhills and Sandhills life intended to provoke interest in the subject and to make people aware of the Heritage Room collection. There are many more works about the Sandhills, including fiction, memoirs, and County histories.

 

dsc: 7-12-2006