Travel U.S. Route 83 with Author Stew Magnuson at Neihardt Site Sunday May 17

The Neihardt Foundation encourages travelers and historians alike to take note of the May “Sunday Afternoon at the Museum” program. Author Stew Magnuson recently released The Last American Highway: A Journey Through Time Down U.S. Route 83: Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma, (Court Bridge Publishing) a travel-history book that uncovers stories along the road that bisects the United States from north to south, and will be at the John G. Neihardt State Historic Site in Bancroft on May 17 at 5:00 p.m. for a presentation and book signing. Descending 1,885 miles down the center of the United States from Westhope, N.D. to Brownsville, Texas, U.S. 83 is one of the oldest and longest federal highways that has not been replaced by an Interstate. Magnuson takes readers through the Nebraska Sand Hills, the Smoky River Valley in Kansas and the singular Oklahoma Panhandle. Along the route are the stories of the famous, infamous, and the forgotten. Buffalo Bill Cody hunted these lands, but what about Buffalo Jones, who set out to save the American bison from extinction? This is where the ruthless, but now largely forgotten bank robbers, the Fleagles, committed their most heinous crime; where the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia met George Armstrong Custer and Pussy Cat Nell dispatched the corrupt Sheriff “Bushy” Bush with a shotgun blast. U.S. 83 ties President Eisenhower, the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and author Truman Capote together.