The Territory of Nebraska was created by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. When created the new Territory included most of the northern Great Plains, as well as large portions of the upper Missouri River basin and eastern portions of the northern Rocky Mountains. It decreased in size as other territories were formed from it. On March 1, 1867, Nebraska was admitted to the Union as the 37th state.

Today Nebraska covers 77,358 square miles of land, has 93 counties and ranks 38th in population. The State Capitol is Lincoln and the largest city is Omaha. It is bordered on the north by South Dakota, east by Iowa, southeast by Missouri, south by Kansas, southwest by Colorado and west by Wyoming.

Legislative action in 1895 designated Nebraska as the "Tree Planters' State". Its tree planting fame includes the founding of Arbor Day in 1872, and the millions of trees planted by the early settlers as windbreaks, orchards and woodlots. In 1945 Legislature changed the offical state name to the "Cornhusker State." You might think that's because of the amount of corn grown in the state but, actually, the name is derived from the athletic teams at the University of Nebraska. Nebraska ranks 3rd in corn grown in the United States.

Nebraska is best known as an agricultural state but can lay claim to the invention of many well known things. The machine to make those big round hay bales that you see in the fields was invented by the Luebben family in Sutton. In 1927 Edwin E. Perkins mixed up his first packet of what would become Kool-Aid! The Eskimo Pie was created in Iowa but it was Nebraska chocolatier Russell Stover that put it into mass production.

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