Tall Grass Prairie

Center-pivot irrigation has Nebraska roots. Frank Zybach, a farmer at Strasburg, Colorado, is credited with inventing center-pivot irrigation in the 1940s. In 1952 he moved back to Columbus, Nebraska, and opened a shop, backed by A. E. Trowbridge, who paid $25,000 for 49 percent of the patent rights. In 1954 Zybach licensed the patent to Robert Daugherty's Valley Manufacturing, whose engineers spent the next decade refining the design. The company grew into Valmont Industries, with Valley Irrigation as a subsidiary.

What the plaque says

Tall Grass Prairie This rest site is near the center of Nebraska's tall-grass prairie on the eastern edge of the hunting grounds once used by the Pawnee Indians. Nebraska's largest tribe, the Pawnee located villages on major area streams, including the Blue, Loup, and Platte Rivers. Wagon trains from Nebraska City on the Missouri River to frontier settlements and military posts farther west carried people and goods through the area beginning in the 1840's. The freighters' trail, known as the Nebraska City- Fort Kearny Cutoff, ran a few miles south of here. Frontier settlement began in the 1860's, Seward County was organized in 1865, and the countryside was rapidly colonized during the following decade. This fertile watershed of the Big Blue River attracted many German immigrants (including some by way of Russia), as well as Scandinavians. Through the use of deep-well irrigation, the region was developed in recent decades into a major center of successful, intensive farming. For the next seventy miles, westbound travelers will notice the subtle changes in the landscape as the tall-grass prairie merges into the short-grass country of the semi-arid plains. Department of Roads Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• The Big Blue River — 5.8 mi
• Standing Bear and the Ponca Tribe — 5.8 mi
• Beaver Crossing, Nebraska — 6.4 mi
• The Beaver Crossing Mill — 6.4 mi