130 Years Ago -- 2/24/2008

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By the Lincoln Journal Star

   1878: More than 100 land-seeking excursionists were registered in the hotels of Lincoln, while the whole state was beginning to feel the stimulus of a new wave of immigration.

   1888: Lancaster County commissioners approved plans to build a courthouse at 10th and K streets. Still in use 80 years later, it was to be replaced by the County-City Building at 10th and J streets.

   1898: Although a federal judge held a new meat inspection measure to be unconstitutional, inspectors in South Omaha continued to inspect. The feeling was that a higher court would strike down the decision. Without inspection, meat exports to Europe would virtually stop, it was suggested.

   1908: Prohibition backers were hopeful over the amount of dry sentiment discovered after petitions were circulated in Lincoln.

   1918: William Jennings Bryan argued the merits of Prohibition before the New York Legislature, countering discussion by Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor. Bryan said Prohibition would aid the war effort by sending men "clean in mind and body to the battle front."

   1928: A Lincoln Garden Club proposal to keep dogs from running loose brought plenty of reaction but no action.

   1938: State officials asked Omaha to repeal a bookie ordinance as part of a fight against gambling.

   1948: Norman Thomas, Socialist Party leader and former candidate for president, spoke at a convention of the Nebraska Lumber Merchants in Omaha. Although Thomas forecast a Republican victory, Democratic President Harry S Truman was to be elected in his own right. He had advanced from the vice presidency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office in 1945.

   1958: Charles R. Starkweather waived his preliminary hearing in Lancaster County Court on two counts of first-degree murder and was bound over to district court for trial. The confessed slayer of 11 people was returned to the Nebraska State Penitentiary and ordered held without bond. Starkweather, 19, appeared in court with his father, Guy Starkweather, and a court-appointed attorney.

   1968: The U.S. Public Health Service announced it would give $1.6 million to the University of Nebraska to build a library at the College of Medicine in Omaha.

   1978: The deadline for the state's 93 counties to complete property re-evaluations was pushed back a year by an attorney general's opinion.

   1988: The Legislature's Appropriations Committee and the governor agreed that the state had enough money for a 13.6 percent increase in faculty salary at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The proposal stated that UNL and the four state colleges would receive an additional $10 million for salary improvements.

   1998: Nebraska writer Mari Sandoz was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center's Hall of Great Westerners. Sandoz was recognized for her contribution to Western literature at the museum's 37th Annual Western Heritage Awards, at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.