The "A Few Interesting Firsts In The United States" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Opened my Saturday Evening Post to a story titled 50 States, 50 Firsts: Montana to Wyoming.  Perhaps you have seen the article already, but just in case, I have picked a few of the states and what they may have been first in and have passed them on to you.  Please follow along with me...

Nebraska - First Arbor Day:  

As pioneers and fortune-seekers moved westward during the 19th century, some arrived in what is today known as Nebraska.  Wide-open plains...but, perhaps too wide open since they had no trees which they needed for shade and as windbreaks to hold the soil in place and to provide building material for their new homes.  So, a newspaper editor in Nebraska proposed a tree-planting holiday which was set for April 10, 1872.  An estimated 1 million trees were planted that day in Nebraska.  The day became known as Arbor Day.  By 1882, many schools were hosting special programs for schoolchildren on Arbor Day, teaching the importance of trees.  Today, National Arbor Day is marked in all 50 states on the last Friday in April.

Nevada - First Modern Roundabout in the United States

The modern "yield-at-entry" roundabouts that we see all the time around the United States got their start in Great Britain in the mid-1960s.  The design forced traffic to slow down, but simultaneously kept it moving.  There was no need for electric traffic lights and thus lowered the frequency and severity of accidents. It caught on quickly in Australia, but not in the United States.  European nations began to test roundabouts in the 1980s, but the first modern roundabout wasn't installed in the United States until spring of 1990 in Summerlin, Nevada.  Today there are more than 10,000 of them across the United States with Carmel, Indiana holding the record for most roundabouts with about 150 of them. 

New Hampshire - First Free Tax-Funded Public Library in America  

In 1833, at the recommendation of the Rev. Abiel Abbot, a Unitarian minister in Peterborough, New Hampshire, a library was started that was owned and funded by the people of the town and was payed for by taxes.  This was said to have been the first free public library, but it wasn't the first free public library building.  It was in 1893 that the town finally built the Peterborough Town Library building.

South Dakota - First (and so far only) Corn Palace 

The citizens of the small town known as Mitchell came together in 1892 and constructed a building on Main Street that was "conceived as a gathering place where city residents and their rural neighbors could enjoy a fall festival with extraordinary stage entertainment.  It was meant to be a celebration to climax a crop-growing season and harvest according to CornPalace.com.  Today the building is much larger and is host to musical hits, high school and college sporting events, local markets and celebrations as well as the annual Corn Palace Festival at the end of August. 

Tennessee - World's First Ball of Cotton Candy

In 1897, Nashville resident William Morrison got together with confectioner John Wharton and developed an electric candy machine that pushed sugar crystals through a metal bowl covered in tiny holes, creating a cotton-like substance made from pure, tasty sugar.  Wow!  They were awarded a patent for it in 1899 and introduced the treat at the St. Lous World's Fair in 1904 as "Fairy Floss."  Can you remember the first time you ever ate cotton candy?  Perhaps you never had any of the sugary stuff at all in your life time.  Well, if that's the case, you better head to a fair somewhere in you neighborhood and buy yourself some...before it's to late.  But than again, your dentist may not appreciate it.

Vermont - First State to Outlaw Slavery

According to the Smithsonian Institution, while the people of Vermont were glad to have been rid of the yoke of British rule, they weren't too keen on joining the United States; since they liked their independence.  In an area where Quaker-led abolitionism had flourished, people didn't believe that freedom should be limited by skin color.  On July 2, 1777, the colonial legislature voted to abolish slavery, and elements were even pushing to extend the right to vote to African-Amerian men.  Vermont was the first free state to be admitted into the Union. 

Follow my blog in the near future to see a few more stories about how and when they joined the Union.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.