Early Irrigation in Cheyenne County

The water Coulter's crew reached lies in one of the world's largest aquifers, under about 174,000 square miles of eight states. Heavy pumping began after World War II, helped by the center pivot and by automobile engines adapted to drive well pumps. Today about 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States lies over it, and it yields about 30 percent of the groundwater used for irrigation nationwide. Since 1950 irrigation has drawn down its saturated volume by an estimated 9 percent, though water levels in parts of eastern and central Nebraska have risen since 1980.

What the plaque says

Early Irrigation in Cheyenne County On June 1, 1926, George A. Coulter completed one of the first four irrigation wells in Cheyenne County, among the earliest in western Nebraska, on his farm just south of here. He and his son, James, dug the first twenty-two feet by hand. Charles Stanton, a Potter, Nebraska, driller, completed the final sixty feet to reach the Ogallala aquifer. The well pumped about one thousand gallons per minute, irrigating one hundred acres of corn, alfalfa, and wheat. Coulter sold the farm to Albert Nielsen in 1929; the well was still in use by Nielsen's sons in 2009. Irrigation from streams began in western Nebraska during the latter years of the nineteenth century. In the 1940s and 1950s the drilling of groundwater wells expanded rapidly, extending irrigation's benefits throughout the state. By the end of the twentieth century the self-propelled center pivot system, de- veloped in Nebraska, had become a common method of irrigating crops. Irrigation helped transform the state into one of the nation's leading agricultural producers. In 2009 Cheyenne County had 631 reg- istered irrigation wells, with more than 105,000 registered in Nebraska. George A. Coulter Family Nebraska State Historical Society, 2009

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Sidney — 18 mi
  Three surviving buildings of the post that guarded the Union Pacific at Sidney from 1867 to 1894, where a young army surgeon named Walter Reed found a ward full of ugly cases.

More markers nearby

• Sioux Army Depot — 9.8 mi
• Geology — 12 mi
• The Golden Link — 12 mi
• Sidney-Black Hills Trail — 16 mi