The Great Plains encompasses the entirety of Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota and parts of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming. Each state offers ecoregions and ecosystems unto themselves and each is unique.
From phantom hoof clops to flickering lights to sightings of people long gone, Fort Robinson is full of the remnants of pain, suffering, and joy of those who lived there. Tales of ghost soldiers, wandering Native Americans, and children who have chosen to remain forever at the site.
Discover the untold story of the Buffalo Soldiers — African American members of the 9th and 10th Cavalry — who served at Fort Robinson and Fort Niobrara after the Civil War. Despite facing systemic racism, these troopers helped build the western frontier, earned multiple Medals of Honor, and challenged military traditions.
The Cheyenne Breakout involved over 140 Northern Cheyenne held at Fort Robinson who, denied the right to return north and confined without basic necessities, launched a desperate escape on January 9, 1879. This resulted in a brutal clash leading to numerous deaths among both the Cheyenne and U.S. soldiers—one of the darkest, yet pivotal, events of the Indian Wars in Nebraska.
Every winter, bald eagles transform Nebraska’s rivers and reservoirs into staging grounds for one of the Great Plains’ most dramatic natural events: the return of the bald eagles.
Every winter, bald eagles transform Nebraska’s rivers and reservoirs into staging grounds for one of the Great Plains’ most dramatic natural events: the return of the bald eagles.
Western Nebraska’s Pine Ridge country looks quiet today. Rugged buttes rise over the White River valley, cottonwoods trace the water’s bends, and pronghorn graze across the open hills. But beneath the calm lies a history every bit as dramatic as the land itself. This is Fort Robinson, one of the most storied military posts of the Northern Plains.
Tucked into the Southern Black Hills, Hot Springs, South Dakota, wears two coats at once: spa town and science hub. On one side of town, naturally warm, mineral-rich water still bubbles up as it has for millennia, the reason nineteenth-century visitors flocked here to “take the waters.”
