Capital of Nebraska
I was quite surprised and pleased when this morning, Sammy asked me what the capital of Nebraska was. Apparently, he was watching something on DVD and heard the term “capital city”, thus prompting him to curiosity over the capital of Nebraska. Seeing as Mom was there and I knew that she needed something to occupy her mind until Dad came back, I roped her into telling Sammy about how Lincoln came to be the capital of Nebraska, a piece of history which I believe that every Nebraska child should at least know the gist of.
So Mom told him about how a long time ago, when Lincoln was still the town of Lancaster (established in 1856, about one hundred and fifty-two years ago), Omaha – where his Aunt Lily is living right now, was the capital of Nebraska. The town that will later become a city, and then the capital of Nebraska was founded only two years after establishment of the Nebraska Territory, when Omaha became the capital. I jumped in at that point, telling Sammy that in just three years of Lancaster Town’s establishment, Lancaster County was born and the town became the county seat. Because of territory issues, the Village of Lancaster was chosen to replace Omaha as capital of Nebraska; attempts such as renaming the village “Lincoln” did not return the title to Omaha. In 1867, Lincoln became the state capital of Nebraska when Nebraska became an American state.
The lesson made us all happy.