Rambles Through the Nebraska Panhandle

To the Lakota, it was the Moonshell River; to the French explorers, La Rivière North Platte; to the Americans, the North Platte. Whatever its name, a generation of dreamers followed the muddy river west through the Great Plains segment of the Oregon Trail. Like all roads west, the Oregon Trail had lots of branches and offshoots, some so heavily used that they got their own names—such as the California Trail and the Mormon Trail. But the main route meandered 2,000 miles from Independe