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Over 150 years ago, the area now known as Chadron was vast, open grassland. Nearby water sources, Chartran Creek and Bordeaux Creek, were named for the French fur traders whose main customers were nomadic tribes the French called the Sioux. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills, the area quickly changed. The military outposts Fort Robinson and Camp Sheridan were established to control Indian Agencies for Red Cloud's and Spotted Tail's bands. Cattle replaced buffalo on the rich grasslands. The railroad pushed its way west, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Fort Atkinson has been called the "top historical spot in Nebraska," the "SAC of 1820," and "America's most important Western outpost." Once the country's largest fortress beyond the Missouri River, its garrison protected America's interests in the burgeoning fur trade, provided a base camp for explorations, played host to famous frontiersmen, and was the site where numerous treaties were signed. But by 1961, Fort Atkinson was endangered. The fort's buildings had vanished over 100 years before. Decades of farming on the land had nearly erased its footprint. A housing development threatened to obliterate the site forever. There was only a marker with a flagpole raised in 1927 by the Daughters of the American Revolution--a lonely object in the midst of an empty plain. This book tells the story of how that lost fortress was restored to become the major state historical park it is today.

Lincoln, Nebraska's capital, grew from 45,000 to 55,000 residents in the years 1910-1925. The state's second-largest city, Lincoln was also home to Nebraska's second-largest African American community--a "small town" within the midwestern city. Local race relations were a study in contradictions. Public education and residential neighborhoods were relatively integrated; employment and social institutions were increasingly restricted. Within this setting, a laborer named John Johnson--a native of Lincoln and son of a black Civil War veteran--produced remarkable images as an itinerant photographer of the Lincoln scene, especially of its black community. Johnson left very little written record, so knowledge is fragmentary of his working techniques and of his collaborators or assistants. But his visual legacy takes people through the streets, onto the front porches, and into the backyards and living rooms of a vibrant community.