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

December 2012
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Kid Curry’s Last Gunfight
- Remington’s Second Life
- Hanging Your Hat in Colorado’s Historic Hotels
- 10 for 10: Grapevine, Texas
- Tom Van Dyke
- Gold Rush Genealogy
- December 2012 Events
- Hometown Visionaries
- Did the last hanging in the Old West take place in Santa Rosa, California?
- Did women in the West buy their foodstuffs in bulk?
- Do you agree with Maurice Kildare, who claimed the men hanged for the Bisbee Massacre were not the culprits?
- What camera equipment did Tombstone photographer C.S. Fly use?
- What kind of beans did cowboys cook on the trail?
- A Dickens Christmas
- Let’s Rodeo
- Fine Fruitcakes
- The Dalton Death Rifle?
- Remembering D.L. Birchfield
- The Geronimo Trap