NEBRASKA, FLAG OF

U.S. state flag consisting of a dark blue field (background) with the state seal in the centre. On March 28, 1925, Nebraska became the last of the contiguous 48 states to adopt a flag of its own. The flag design was promoted by many people, including Mrs. B.C. Miller, who wrote The Flag Song of Nebraska. Central to the design is the seal, which was conceived by Isaac Wiles and approved in 1867 when Nebraska became a state. Unlike some states that have assigned naturalistic colouring to their seals when used on their flags or for purposes such as vehicle identification or stationery, Nebraska limits the seal colours to gold, silver, and blue. The seal shows the Missouri River with a steamboat, a blacksmith in the foreground with his hammer and anvil, a settler's cabin surrounded by wheat sheaves and growing corn, and in the background a railroad train heading toward the Rocky Mountains (which lie west of Nebraska). The motto Equality before the law originally referred to the right of each settler to public land; at the time of the seal's adoption, the motto was also seen as a reference to the abolition of slavery. The flag law of 1925 designated the flag a state banner, which in some contexts may be considered distinct from a state flag. The legislature in 1963, adhering to such a strict reading of the law, raised the banner to the status of state flag. Whitney Smith History Various prehistoric peoples inhabited Nebraska as early as 8000 BC. In the 19th century semisedentary Indian tribes, most notably the Ponca, Omaha, Oto, and Pawnee, lived in eastern and central Nebraska. The west was the domain of the nomadic Brul and Oglala Sioux, but other tribes, such as the Arapaho, Comanche, and Cheyenne, also roved the area. Exploration and settlement Nebraska was on the periphery of the North American empires of France and Spain, but in 1763 Spain won title to the trans-Mississippi region. Spanish efforts to develop Indian trade in upper Missouri brought little success, and international politics led to the transfer of the region, including Nebraska, to France in 1800. Three years later the United States acquired this vast area as part of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1804 the Lewis and Clark Expedition visited the Nebraska side of the Missouri River and conducted the first systematic exploration of the area. Shortly thereafter a vigorous fur trade developed along the Missouri, but Nebraska was primarily a highway to richer fur-trapping areas to the north and west. During the 1840s the Platte valley became another highway as thousands of settlers moved westward. Much interest soon developed in Nebraska and in the Platte valley as a potential railroad route to the Pacific. Frontier land speculators in western Missouri and Iowa anticipated great financial gains if the Nebraska country, part of the large Indian domain between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, were opened for settlement. With the adoption of the KansasNebraska Act in 1854, the federal government extended political organization to the trans-Missouri region. Originally the Nebraska Territory comprised 351,558 square miles, but by 1863 the organization of the Colorado, Dakota, and Idaho (including the states of Montana and Wyoming) territories had reduced Nebraska almost to its present dimensions. Much of the economy of the early Nebraska settlements along the Missouri River was based on land speculation. Agriculture soon began to develop, however, and some river towns became important transfer points for freight and passengers going west. The completion of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869 and the railroad construction that followed contributed to the development of the state.