Picking Up Potatoes
Just outside of Gering, right next to Scotts Bluff National Monument, is a fairly new museum, formerly called the Farm and Ranch Museum (FARM), and now known as Legacy of the Plains. The museum sprawls over several acres, including some working fields and plenty of old farm equipment, as well as a large, dedicated, museum building, some fully furnished period houses, a barn, and a blacksmith shop. Although it's a mecca for school field trips, the museum is open year-round for anyone to stop by and see what farming and ranching were like in the Nebraska panhandle from the late 1800s throughout the twentieth century. Every September, the museum sponsors a Harvest Festival, where the old machinery is fired up and used to harvest the year's crops: some combination of corn, dry edible beans, sugar beats, pumpkins, and potatoes. The old guys who volunteer their time at the museum are in their glory, using horse-drawn equipment, or driving vintage tractors through the fields. Even the...