Today in Nebraska history for the month of June

June 1
    •1894 - The three remaining companies of the 21st Infantry left Fort Sidney as the Army abandoned the post.
    •1898 - The Trans-Mississippi Exposition opened in Omaha.
June 2
    •1852 - Susan Hail died while traveling the Oregon Trail near Kenesaw. Her husband reportedly returned to St. Joseph, Missouri, to buy a tombstone for her grave and brought it back to Nebraska in a wheelbarrow.
    •1866 - Residents of the Nebraska Territory voted for statehood, 3,938 to 3,838.
    •1969 - The destroyer USS Frank E. Evans collided in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam with an Australian aircraft carrier, killing 74 Americans. The dead included three brothers from Niobrara: Gary, Gregory and Kelly Sage.
June 3
    •1890 - The Modern Woodmen of America fraternal organization and life insurance association was formed in Omaha.
    •1933 - The Loup Public Power District, the first public power district in the state, was organized with headquarters in Columbus.
    •1941 - A nonprofit group formed in Columbus, setting up Agricultural Park.
    •1980 - A series of tornadoes terrorized Grand Island, killing five people and injuring 200. President Jimmy Carter visited Grand Island a week later to view the damage, which was so devastating that one Omaha insurance company inundated with claims went bankrupt.
June 4
    •1965 - Duane Pope, who five days before had graduated from McPherson College in Kansas, robbed the Farmers State Bank of Big Springs and killed three bank employees. One wounded employee survived to testify against Pope, who was convicted of the murders.
June 5
    •1934 - Proponents of a unicameral legislature said they gathered 75,000 signatures to place an initiative on the ballot.
June 6
    •1820 - Maj. Stephen Long of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began an expedition to the Rocky Mountains from Engineer Cantonment on the Missouri River near present-day Fort Calhoun.
    •1937 - Fire swept through a stable at Ak-Sar-Ben racetrack in Omaha, killing a trainer, a groom and 73 horses.
June 7
    •1985 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the average value of one acre of Nebraska farmland dropped to $444 from $617 the previous year.
June 8
    •1849 - George Winslow, a traveler on the Oregon trail, died of cholera near Fairbury.
    •1976 - Caril Ann Fugate, who rode with mass murderer Charles Starkweather during his 1958 string of murders, was given parole.
June 9
    •1873 - The Keith County Board of Commissioners met for the first time and appointed Tom Lonergan probate judge. Lonergan arrived in Ogallala in 1867 to work for the Union Pacific Railroad. He and his brother, Philip, later became prominent cattle ranchers.
June 10
    •1867 - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer brought the 7th U.S. Cavalry to Fort McPherson during a campaign against Sioux and Cheyenne Indians.
    •1952 - The Harlan County Dam was dedicated.
June 11
    •1969 - The people of Niobrara held a memorial service for the three Sage brothers who were killed off the coast of Vietnam nine days earlier when a U.S. destroyer they were on collided with an Australian aircraft carrier.
    •1986 - About 600 people walking across the country in the Great Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament crossed the Nebraska border from Colorado near Big Springs.
    •2008 - Three Omaha Boy Scouts were among four killed when a tornado swept through the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in western Iowa.
June 12
    •1875 - A state constitutional convention adjourned after agreeing to constitutional changes later passed by voters that included the right of the Legislature to regulate railroads.
    •1980 - An Air Wisconsin commuter plane en route from Minneapolis to Lincoln crashed near Valley in a violent thunderstorm, killing 13 people. Only two passengers survived.
June 13
    •1946 - Ground was broken on the $31 million Harlan County Dam.
June 14
    •1867 - The Legislature approved a bill moving the state capitol to Lincoln from Omaha.
    •1878 - The Legislature approved the Timber Culture Act, which encouraged the planting of trees.

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Today in Nebraska history for the month of June | Wauneta Breeze

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