Editorial

Carry A. Nation, famous as a Kansas ‘“joint smasher” with her trademark hatchet, stopped in Omaha during her short lecture tour through Nebraska in early 1902. Chaperoned by three newspaper reporters, Mrs. Nation ‘did’ Omaha Saturday afternoon,” said the Seward Independent-Democrat on April 3rd, 1902. “She was desirous of going on a slumming expedition in the evening, but in order to catch her train, she was prevented from seeing the sights by gaslight.” After visiting the county jail, Mrs. Nation announced, “‘Now I want to see something interesting.’ Mickey Mullen’s theater, a famous resort for cheap sports, was suggested as a possible point of interest, and the ‘smasher’” readily fell in with the idea.

Collecting souvenir spoons became a popular hobby for Americans in the late 1800s when this European fad swept the nation. Wealthy Americans visiting Europe brought home these mementos marked with the names of foreign cities and famous landmarks they had visited. The first souvenir spoon produced in the United States, in Washington, D.C., featured a profile of George Washington and was created to mark the centennial of his presidency. It was shortly followed by the Martha Washington spoon.

With the sole exception of grasshoppers, perhaps the most hated insects to afflict the pioneer farmer were potato bugs. So prevalent were they at one time in Nebraska that one of the state’s early nicknames, the “Bug Eaters,” was said to refer partly to them. According to John A. MacMurphy, secretary of the Nebraska Territorial Pioneers Association, writing in November 1894, an easterner came to Nebraska to visit relatives during the lean years of the 1870s and on his return home, was asked about conditions here. According to MacMurphy's 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."

In the summer of 1911 J. A. Morrow and his sons, Everett and Edward, began building an airplane in their Carleton, Nebraska, blacksmith shop. Before the craft was finished, the Morrows moved to Burwell to ply their trade. It was there that the plane first took flight in the fall of 1912. It was a “pusher prop” bi-plane patterned after one developed by Glenn Curtiss in 1910. As with many early planes, the Morrow craft often crashed during demonstration flights in towns around the state, but it was quickly repaired in time for the next exhibition. The Burwell Tribune recorded many of these episodes in the fall of 1912. While the full story of the Morrows and their flying machine has not been written, Wings Over Nebraska: Historic Aviation Photographs by Vince Goeres with Kylie Kinley includes a photo of the Morrow plane taken in Opelika, Alabama, in 1913. The book was published by the Nebraska State Historical Society in 2010.