The Sodbusters’ Historian

In 1886, Solomon Butcher had his eureka moment, the biggest idea of his life. He would compile a book, a photographic history of the pioneers of Nebraska’s Custer County. Butcher had moved to the county, named after the U.S. Army officer George Armstrong Custer, in 1880, leaving Illinois behind in order to claim some of the government land being given away as part of the 1862 Homestead Act. Along with pictures, he would include in the book his neighbors’ biographies and recollec