Nebraska City Historical Society Podcast

Kathy McKillip
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The official podcast of the Nebraska City Historical Society, hosted by Kathy McKillip. Each episode explores the people, places, and events that define Nebraska City's history, featuring conversations with historians, longtime residents, and community members dedicated to preserving the town's story.

  1. 8h ago

    From Nebraska City to the Harlem Hellfighters: The Story of Colonel William Hayward

    Many people in Nebraska City know the name Hayward from the elementary school and the park, but few know the man behind it. Kathy McKillip talks with author Tammy Partsch about Colonel William Hayward, who was born in Nebraska City in 1877 and went on to command the 369th Infantry Regiment, the Harlem Hellfighters, in World War I. The episode follows his path from Nebraska City High School and the University of Nebraska, where he served in Pershing's cadet corps, through the Spanish-American War, a law practice, and a failed run for Congress. Voters reportedly disliked his fancy car because it scared their horses. It then follows him to New York, where he worked in law and politics and was asked to lead a new all-Black National Guard regiment that had struggled to find a commander. They cover how the regiment recruited in a Harlem theater and drilled with broomsticks, how it was loaned to the French army when white American units refused to fight alongside it, and how it earned a reputation as one of the war's most decorated units. They also discuss the racism the soldiers faced at home, including the Army's treatment of Colonel Charles Young, and the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to the regiment in 2021. The conversation also touches on Hayward's later life, his connections to Broadway and Hollywood through his son, talent agent Leland Hayward, and his marriage into Gilded Age New York society. It's a story of how far one Nebraska City native traveled, and of an overlooked chapter in American history.

  2. 9h ago

    How Applejack Began: A Century of Apple Harvest Celebrations in Nebraska City

    Applejack is now the fall festival Nebraska City is best known for, but its roots go back about a hundred years. Kathy McKillip talks with author Tammy Partsch about how it grew from small orchard fairs in the 1920s into the Apple Harvest Festival of the 1930s and 40s. Early editions featured a horseshoe-pitching champion, a festival agenda mailed to radio stations around the state, regional queen pageants, high school band competitions, and six-man football's Apple Bowl. The festival then lapsed for years, until a small group of local men revived it in 1969 and, according to legend, gave it the name Applejack. From there the episode follows how it grew. Early additions like water barrel fights and big wheel races came and went, attendance rose from about 6,000 in 1988 to an estimated 90,000 today, and the 2020 festival was spread over four weekends. They explain why the town settled on two weekends since then, and how the city and the orchards each shape the event. The conversation closes on the lessons of the festival's history: keep trying new things when old ones fail, and support the volunteers who make a community tradition possible.

  3. 9h ago

    The Armistice Day Freeze of 1940: The Storm That Blew Up Nebraska City's Orchards

    On November 11, 1940, temperatures in southeast Nebraska plunged from the 60s to below zero in just a few hours, freezing the sap-filled trees and bursting them from the inside out. Kathy McKillip talks with author Tammy Partsch about how the storm destroyed roughly 75% of Nebraska City's commercial apple crop, why the area's soil made it such good orchard country, and how Grove Porter's marketing and lobbying helped orchards get through the aftermath. They also look at which orchards are still operating today, how the same storm became a deadly blizzard in the Upper Midwest, and why Armistice Day became Veterans Day in 1954. The episode is ultimately about perseverance, and Tammy's books on Nebraska history are mentioned at the close.

  4. Sep 21

    How Nebraska City Lost the Capital (and Won at History Anyway)

    Dr. Sarah Crook joins Kathy McKillop to talk about her decades of work with Nebraska history organizations — from six years on the Nebraska State Historical Society board to her current role with the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation, which helps fund tours, museum partnerships, and the "Wander Nebraska" program that gets travelers off I-80 and into the state's small-town museums and local businesses. The conversation then turns to one of Nebraska's best origin stories: the fight over where to put the state capital. Hear how the sleepy, riverless hamlet of Lancaster beat out Omaha and Fremont, how Omaha operatives allegedly hid every dictionary in the room to stall the spelling of "capital" vs. "capitol," how the new town got named Lincoln as part of a political trick that backfired, and how state records were smuggled out of Omaha under cover of darkness to make the move official. Along the way, Dr. Crook explains how Nebraska City — once a thriving Missouri River "jumping off point" — found its own growth slowed as the railroad reshaped the state around Lincoln and Omaha instead.

  5. Sep 21

    From Jumping-Off Point to Melting Pot: Immigration and Nebraska City's Early Growth

    Dr. Sarah Crook returns to the Nebraska City Historical Society podcast with Kathy McKillop to explore how the region grew from frontier outpost to settled community. They trace Nebraska City's roots to old Fort Kearney (built in 1846, later relocated west, and famously misspelled), the pivotal 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, and why the town became a favored "jumping off point" for westward travelers along the Missouri River. The conversation turns to the waves of European immigrants — largely German Lutherans, alongside Irish, Polish, Czech, and Swedish settlers — who were drawn west by railroad recruiting campaigns and the Homestead Act, and how many small Nebraska towns still celebrate that heritage today through food and festivals. Along the way, Dr. Crook shares the sobering story of anti-German sentiment during World War I, when speaking German was criminalized and towns like Berlin, Nebraska renamed themselves overnight. A wide-ranging look at the people, policy, and geography that built Nebraska City and the state around it.

  6. Sep 21

    The Woman Behind Nebraska City's Underground Railroad Story

    Dr. Sara Crook joins Kathy McKillip of the Nebraska City Historical Society to share the remarkable, often overlooked story of Barbara Mayhew — one of Nebraska City's earliest settlers and the sister of John Kagi, John Brown's right-hand man. Dr. Crook, who has portrayed Barbara in living-history performances for nearly two decades, traces how the Mayhew cabin (long known locally as "John Brown's Cave") became a stop on the Underground Railroad, the dangerous route abolitionists and freedom seekers traveled through Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa, and the high stakes — imprisonment, fines, even death — faced by those who helped. The conversation follows Barbara's brother John Kagi from the Shenandoah Valley to Bleeding Kansas to Harper's Ferry, where he was among the first killed, and reflects on what it meant for ordinary families like the Mayhews to risk everything for a cause that didn't directly benefit them. A moving look at territorial-era Nebraska, women's history, and the human side of the fight against slavery

  7. Sep 21

    Building America One Wagon at a Time: The Lost Craft of the Freighter's Wagon

    In this episode, the Nebraska City Historical Society sits down with Doug Hansen of Hanson Wheel & Wagon Shop and historian Dr. Sarah Crook to explore the hand-forged craftsmanship behind the freighter's wagon — the workhorse vehicle that helped move 44 million pounds of freight out of Nebraska City in 1866 alone. Doug shares how a lifelong fascination with regional trails and historic vehicles turned into decades of self-taught, archaeologist-style research into wagon construction, from wheelwrighting and blacksmithing to the rigging systems that let teams of mules and oxen haul massive loads across the plains. The conversation covers the pre-industrial-revolution structure of Doug's shop, what makes the Concord stagecoach such a marvel of engineering, and why the unsung teamsters and bullwhackers who kept freight moving west deserve far more credit than they get. A must-listen for anyone curious about the real engineering and economic backbone of westward expansion.

  8. Sep 10

    Camp Creek Cemetery

    Host Kathy McKillip is joined by Nebraska City Historical Society board member Lucille Sharp to explore the history of Camp Creek Cemetery, a rural burial ground established in 1866 south of Nebraska City. Lucille traces the cemetery's roots to the area's earliest settlers along the Jim Lane Trail, its ties to the Underground Railroad through the grave of Barbara Mayhew Bradway, and the story behind its "Stranger Lots" — a section reserved for unidentified travelers who died far from home. The conversation covers the National Register-listed 1917 chapel, its individually wrapped imported brick, and how a century-old cemetery continues to be documented, maintained, and honored today. Learn more at NebraskaCityHistoricalSociety.com or on Facebook.

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The official podcast of the Nebraska City Historical Society, hosted by Kathy McKillip. Each episode explores the people, places, and events that define Nebraska City's history, featuring conversations with historians, longtime residents, and community members dedicated to preserving the town's story.

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