That's My World--Young Cabin

The Young Cabin is at the Young Cemetery and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The cemetery was established in 1855. The cabin was built by the National Youth Administration, a New Deal work project and vocational training program established for the country's young adults. A dwelling originally constructed in 1856 on the William Young family homestead was disassembled in 1941 and its materials, including the hand-hewn logs, were used in the construction of the Young Cemetery Cabin by National Youth Administration workers .

About the National Youth Administration

The huge numbers of unemployed youth of the 1930s underscored several fears adults had for society. Conservatives saw disgruntled young people as a fertile ground for revolutionary politics while liberals mourned the disillusionment and apathy spreading among American youth. Educators feared that without some type of financial aid, colleges would suffer irreversible damage. ER [Eleanor Roosevelt] worried that long-term unemployment and borderline poverty would undermine young Americans' faith in democracy. She told the New York Times that "I live in real terror when I think we may be losing this generation. We have got to bring these young people into the active life of the community and make them feel that they are necessary."
ER, working closely with educators and relief officials, pushed FDR to address this problem. Although at first FDR did not want to develop programs for young people, this lobbying effort changed his mind. In June 1935, he signed an executive order establishing the National Youth Administration (NYA), a New Deal program designed specifically to address the problem of unemployment among Depression-era youth.
The NYA sought to cope with this problem in two ways. First, the administration provided grants to high school and college students in exchange for work. This allowed young people to continue studying while at the same time preventing the pool of unemployed youth from getting any larger. Second, for those young people who were both unemployed and not in school, the NYA aimed to combine economic relief with on-the-job training in federally funded work projects designed to provide youth with marketable skills for the future.

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That's My World!--Filley Stone Barn

Filley’s Stone Barn

Filley's stone barn -- best known feature of the area -- was built, in part, because of the need for employment during the terrible grasshopper plague and drought that struck in the early 1870s. The project kept many settlers from losing their land. Built into a hillside, the lower level had stalls for 60 animals. The three-inch plank that covered the main floor was caulked with oakum (made from hemp) and covered with melted pitch to be water-tight for 30 additional stalls. The loft held 100 tons of hay. Completed in late November, a stone inscribed "Built By Elijah Filley - AD 1874" was set above the west door, and a grand barn dance was attended by everyone in the community.

The barn, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, was described as the largest limestone structure presently known, and one of the most magnificent barns in the state. The cost of restoration through grants and by the Gage County Historical Society was many times the original cost of the building. It is now available for numerous activities and hopefully will stand as a land mark for another 100 years or so.

Once in awhile you encounter an informational site and you wonder why you never found it before. Such is the site that the information about Filley’s Stone Barn is quoted from. The site isNebraska…Our Towns. It has, among other things, historical information about six hundred cities and towns in Nebraska.

Boy am I going to bore everyone to tears now! giggle

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You Tube of Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese

One of the posters on the Nebraska Birding Hotline posted a link to this You Tube Video of Sandhill cranes near Fort Kearney State Recreation Area and thousands of geese on lake behind Grandpa's Steakhouse located south of I-80 in Kearney. The video is from March 4.



For more Sandhill Crane resources click here and here.

Nebraska Sandhill Crane Viewing Resources

UPDATE: See my updated post for 2010

Thought I would put together a quick and dirty post on Sandhill Crane resources. To me, this is the time of year a Nebraska birder looks forward to the most, but I’ll leave the adjectives to the cited resources!

Rowe Sanctuary is operated by Audubon. Their center is located on the Platte River and is beautifully situated. They have blinds where the cranes can be observed. If for no other reason, they deserve a visit because their building is the second largest straw bale building in the United States. Lots of other interesting information at their site. The birding list for Rowe (pdf) is representative of birds in the area. CraneCam will be active from March 7 until April 8.

A new site this year that I really like, is Nebraskaflyway.com. More on that site later.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission provides all the information you would ever want to know about Sandhill cranes.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission also has some general information about crane viewing. There’s also a section on crane viewing etiquette.

The three main places to hang out during your stay are Grand Island, Hastings, and Kearney.
The visitor’s bureau for Grand Island
The visitor’s bureau for Hastings
The visitor’s bureau for Kearney

My personal preference is to stay in Kearney, but there are good reasons to stay in Grand Island or Hastings.

For a birding enthusiast there’s much more going on. Seven to ten million Snow geese, Canada geese, and ducks pass through the area. Other migrating birds are starting or are in the middle of their migration. As of the writing of this post, Snow geese are abundant.

Nebraska Birding Trails has oodles of information of birding throughout the state. If you doubt that there are places to bird in the area, these two maps will dispel that notion. Maps are here and here. (pdf)

Nebraskaflyway.com has printable maps of the Platte River viewing sites, of a tour of the Western tour of the Rainwater Basin and of the Eastern tour of the Rainwater Basin. (all maps pdf) More information about the Rainwater Basin. About a week ago I took the eastern tour route, and it is a very organized way to tour the area. Having been to most, if not all of the areas covered in the western tour route, it appears to be an organized way to approach that area also. As you go from county to county, roads names change, and these maps cover the road names very well. Conditions in these areas vary from year to year based on the amount of rain or snow we have had. Many of the roads are county roads (read gravel) and their conditions will also vary according to weather conditions.

Birding Adventures of Southwest & Central Nebraska has some tours of the area in their left sidebar. The fun part of their tours is they talk about the local flavor of rural Nebraska. They also suggest restaurants along the way. (no chain restaurants included!) Their tours are also printable with maps.

The last link I will provide is for Fort Kearney State Recreation Trail. There is a bridge over the Platte River that is excellent for watching the cranes come to their nighttime roost. It’s also an excellent place for sunset pictures over the Platte River. A daytime stroll on this path will usually offer the opportunity to see songbirds.

It can be wickedly cold in Nebraska at this time of year. Don’t forget your longjohns and bring clothes you can layer. Weather can be unpredictable. Sunshine and in the 50’s one day, snow the next day, and everywhere and anywhere in between.

I hope you find these resources helpful. If there is something else that you feel could or should be covered, feel free to leave a comment. I’ll keep an eye on the comments section and respond. And if you find the resources helpful, a shout out would be nice too. Okay, now I’m starting to beg…..

Last but not least, thanks for stopping by my corner of the world. If you come to see the awesome wonder of the crane migration, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.