The Legacy of the Plains Library and Archive includes thousands of items. They include rare publications (including books, newspapers, magazines, maps, manuscripts, and other print resources); a unique collection of technical literature related to farming and farm equipment; audiovisual materials; personal, corporate, and governmental archives; homestead filings and land records; documents of local area businesses; and thousands of images dating from the 19th century to the present, both physically and digitally.
The Library and Archive are available to researchers by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, or to get specific information about our catalogue, please contact the archivist at (308) 436-1989.
Use these buttons to learn more about our collections.
The Paul and Helen Henderson Oregon Trail Collection is one of the most complete trail research tools in existence. It consists over 100 boxes of historical material, including thousands of slides, dozens of maps, thousands of photographs, several manuscripts, and more than 300 pioneer diaries, guides, journals, and letters from the period 1805-1883.
The collection also boasts the notes, correspondence, hand-drawn maps, diagrams, and photographs of Paul and Helen Henderson, who spent more than 50 years documenting the route of the Oregon Trail.
Noted Oregon Trail researcher and author Gregory M. Franzwa has described the Henderson maps as “priceless,” calling them “the finest by far and despite years of research by many other trail historians, his scholarship remains unchallenged.”
This world-class collection is vital to any person making a serious study of the western America’s overland trails, and will become more important as time goes by.
Legacy of the Plains has extensive photographic holdings totaling thousands of images. These include historic photos from Gering, Scottsbluff, and communities throughout the North Platte Valley, as well as photos related to dryland agriculture, North Platte Valley irrigation, farm equipment, and ranching.
In addition, we have several thousand postcards from North Platte Valley locales, dating back to the early 20th century.
Our film and video resources range from home movies shot by local farmers and ranchers to fully produced documentaries about Great Plains agriculture.
Specific holdings include:
- Great Western Sugar industrial film
- Instructional film about the Pathfinder Irrigation District
- Selections from Glen and Leo Kellett’s archive of homemade films, documenting agricultural practices of the 1930s and 1940s.
- General agricultural promotional movies
- Home movies
- “Sunrise to Sunset” (16mm film from the 1950s)
Legacy of the Plains has a broad selection of historic books on western history dating from the 1840s to the 1940s.
We have historic maps of the North Platte Valley region depicting soils, irrigation, land ownership, railroad lines and local cities.
Our holdings also include rare promotional literature such as advertisements, sales catalogs and brochures, breeding stock sales books, business ledgers and vintage magazines.
We also have farming equipment manuals from almost every major U.S. manufacturer of farm equipment, including John Deere, International Harvester, Allis Chalmers, Oliver, Minneapolis Moline, Case, Hart Parr, and Fordson. We have manuals of every type, including:
- Owner
- Operator
- Parts
- Maintenance
- Setup
The library/archive contains many types of federal and state government records, including homestead filings and land patents.
We have records and memorabilia from prominent North Platte Valley corporations, including Great Western Sugar Company (ledgers, annual reports, and photographs) and Lockwood Manufacturing.
Legacy of the Plains houses personal archives from prominent local citizens, including:
- Charlie Fenster (a University of Nebraska researcher in dryland conservation tillage)
- Robert Preston (wheat farmer from southwestern Scotts Bluff County)
- Charles Reisig (irrigation farmer in Scotts Bluff County)
- Wayne Warner (farmer/rancher from Banner County, Nebraska)
- A. B. Wood (founder of the Gering Courier, Nebraska State Legislator)
- George Mark (publisher of the Nebraska Homestead and Mitchell Index)
- A. N. Mathers (first Gering mayor, Scottsbluff National Bank)
We also collect historic records and photographs from area communities, schools and events. We have files including:
- Local communities: Bayard, Broadwater, Gering, Haig, Henry, Hull, Lyman, McGrew, Melbeta, Minatare, Mitchell, Morrill, Redington, Scottsbluff, Terrytown
- Events: Arnold murder trial, Blizzard of 1949, Flood and tornado of 1955, Oregon Trail Days,
- Schools and civic groups: rural Scotts Bluff County schools, city schools, Boy Scouts, churches, Rebekahs, G.A.R., hospitals, Hiram Scott College
- And more: Bay State Cattle Ranch, Bisterfeldt potato cellar archaeology, Cawley’s Potato Chips, Germans from Russia, Japanese, Mexicans, P.O.W. camps
