Nebraska: "Flat Water"

When you hear the name "Nebraska", the first thing you think of is probably "corn" and "cornhuskers", at least that was what always passed through my mind.

No longer.  Now having come roughly halfway across this long (430 miles) state and finding myself in Central City, I have gained a keen (I would even say "palpable") sense that it means "flat river".  That's because, from one end to the other, I'm following Route 30 / Lincoln Highway, and it was easy for the surveyors who laid out the Lincoln Highway (our nation's first transcontinental road) to follow the Platte River.  You guessed it, which I also did long ago, that "platte" is French for "flat", and that decidedly is what this river is all about:  flat, flat, flat.

That's why it meanders about across the state, breaking up into different channels and side waters.  There's an old folk saying that the Platte River is a mile wide and an inch deep, which accounts for the strange, flat bottomed boats with airplane engines mounted on them that people have to skim across the surface of the river with its shallow, sandy bottom, somewhat in the manner of the airboats in the Everglades.

Nebraskier ("Flat Water") — that's exactly how around 1714 French fur trappers and explorers transcribed the name given to the river by the Otoe people, which the French translated as "rivière platte".

Also living around here were the Pawnee, and I was privileged to have the opportunity to run along the Dark Island Trail which passed by their tribal ceremonial grounds.  Following that trail, I crossed the Platte on the 1,072-foot long, old wooden Bader Bridge, which is breathtakingly full of character:

Selected readings

• "Language Log asks: Mari Sandoz" (5/20/24)
• "How and why some insects sing" (6/10/21)