Even a moment is enough for wonder and curiosity. Each page of this book uses a photo or artifact to tell a true story about the past, drawing from the extensive collections of History Nebraska. You can read it straight through, but it’s written to be browsed. Here are the turning points, disasters, amusements, causes and controversies, changing technologies, and scenes of daily life of the people who lived in a Nebraska that sometimes seems familiar to us, and sometimes seems a world away.

David L. Bristow is the editor of Nebraska History Magazine and author of several books, including Flight to the Top of the World: The Adventures of Walter Wellman (Nebraska, 2018) and A Dirty, Wicked Town: Tales of Nineteenth Century Omaha.