Nebraska is far from the ocean, but the land remembers water. More than 100 million years ago, it was the floor of a vast inland sea, and its salt still lingers in the marshes around Lincoln.
In this episode, we trace how salt shaped Nebraska’s history, from the Otoe, Omaha, and Pawnee who gathered crystals for trade and food, to settlers who dreamed of a booming salt industry, to the rare plants and the tiny, fierce Salt Creek tiger beetle that now fight to survive in the last saline wetlands.
From Indigenous knowledge to endangered species, White Gold of the Plains reveals how salt has always held Nebraska in its grip.
See photos, maps, and glimpses of prairie life on Instagram: @rootedintheplains
Want to learn more?
- Athen, Sierra R., Shivangi Dubey, John A. Kyndt, Aharon Oren, and Katsumi Matsuura. 2021. “The Eastern Nebraska Salt Marsh Microbiome Is Well Adapted to an Alkaline and Extreme Saline Environment.” Life (2075-1729) 11 (5): 446. doi:10.3390/life11050446.
- Early, Ann M. “Salt Making.” Encyclopedia of Arkansas, March 17, 2025. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/salt-making-567/.
- Gilbert, M C, and R G Stutheit. “Saltmarshes in Eastern Nebraska: Study Characterizes Some Unusual Wetlands.” WETLANDS RES. PROGRAM BULL 5, no. 1 (1995): 1–4.
- Horton, Agnes. “The History of Nebraska’s Saline Land Grant.” Nebraska History 40, no. 2 (1959): 89.
- Palmer, Joseph A., and Kay Klatt. “The Natural History and Captive Husbandry of the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle, Cicindela (=ellipsoptera) Nevadica Lincolnian (Coleoptera: Carabidae).” DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln, 2014. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/entomologyother/123/.
- Rumney, Thomas. “Salt and Settlement in Nineteenth-Century Nebraska.” Material Culture 16, no. 1 (1984): 43–54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41784818.
- Spomer, Stephen M., and Leon G. Higley. “Population Status and Distribution of the Salt Creek Tiger Beetle, Cicindela Nevadica Lincolniana Casey (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae).” Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 66, no. 4 (1993): 392–98. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25085468.
- Steinauer, Gerry. “Saving Saltwort.” Nebraskaland Magazine, August 17, 2024. https://magazine.outdoornebraska.gov/stories/conservation/saving-saltwort/.
- Ungar, Irwin A., William Hogan, and Mark McClelland. “Plant Communities of Saline Soils at Lincoln, Nebraska.” The American Midland Naturalist 82, no. 2 (1969): 564–77. https://doi.org/10.2307/2423796.
