Faded Dreams, Emptied in Emmons County and Memories in McIntosh County. Three flickr photo sets of (mostly) abandoned, crumbling farms, businesses and homes in rural North Dakota. [previously] [via]
posted by dersins on Apr 6, 2009 - 20 comments

The Willa Cather Archive is an incredible resource provided by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, including biographies, letters, photos, and even full (often annotated) text of much of her writing, including scholarly editions of two of her greatest (and most famous) works, My Antonia and O Pioneers. About the archive.
posted by dersins on May 22, 2008 - 8 comments

"The Emptied Prairie," a National Geographic article on North Dakota's ghost towns and the decline of the Great Plains. Typically amazing National Geographic photos here. Reminds me of a similar series that ran in the New York Times several years ago, which included this fascinating article by Timothy Egan.
posted by dersins on Jan 17, 2008 - 42 comments

The Nebraska Sandhills [wiki] make up the largest vegetated sand dune in the Western Hemisphere-- almost 20,000 square miles of rolling dunes covered with prairie grass. The region is sparsely populated-- dotted with tiny towns, and contains the only man-made National Forest in the US and one of the best golf courses in the world. All told, the area's pretty damn photogenic. Just ask NASA.
posted by dersins on Sep 7, 2007 - 38 comments

"Jim has speculated in past writings as to what creature might be named the official animal of the Great Plains. Here’s a more palatable question: what food might we designate most representative of life on the plains? I nominate the bierock, or as I sometimes call it, the German-Russian answer to the burrito. The bierock is a piece of sweet dough wrapped around a filling of cabbage, onions and beef (or whatever else you want to stuff into it) and baked. The bierock is a characteristic food of Germans from Russia on the southern plains from Texas to Kansas. Germans from Russia in the states from Nebraska north consume the same item, but they call it a runsa." Text excerpted from Plains Folk. II: Romance of the Landscape.
posted by cog_nate on Jul 13, 2007 - 30 comments

Nebraska's small towns. Some of the smaller ones actually have a lot going on. Some of the (slightly) larger ones, maybe not so much. But no matter how small they are, they do all have bars. Even the two smallest.
posted by dersins on Jun 6, 2005 - 26 comments

Lie Down for America, by Thomas Frank. "'How can anyone who has ever worked for someone else vote Republican?' she asked. How could so many people get it so wrong?"
posted by semmi on Oct 18, 2004 - 67 comments

Adopt A Bison. There are several handsome candidates for adoption at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma. Elsewhere, the 51 tribes of the InterTribal Bison Cooperative seek to restore the tatanka to their lands and way of life. And in North Dakota, the falling human population is creating more room for the bison to return to. Perhaps the time is right to restore the Great Plains.
posted by homunculus on Feb 12, 2003 - 20 comments