'Highway 83 Chronicles'

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Julie Kotschwar of McCook, Nebraska, purchases a copy of "The Last American Highway: A Journey through Time down U.S. Route 83: Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma," from author Stew Magnuson of Washington, D.C. Federal Highway 83 runs 1,885 miles from Sky River, Canada, to Brownsville, Texas, and passes through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Very little of it is "spoiled by soulless four-lane interstates," Magnuson writes. There are some stretches of interstate along 83, "but the legacy road is there," he told the 30-or-so people gathered at the Museum of the High Plains in McCook Sunday afternoon. The "Highway 83 Chronicles" -- the first installment about North and South Dakota, the third (yet to be published) about Texas -- isn't devoted to the asphalt of the highway, but rather the history and stories that Magnuson discovered on his travel from north to south. "I could go south to north, and write a whole 'nother book," he said of the abundance of stories that inhabit the country along the highway. "I love the prairie," said Magnuson, who spent summers with his grandparents who lived at Stapleton, Nebraska. "I hate the word 'treeless prairie.' Look, there's one. And another one," he quipped, showing slides of a tree or two along 83. The Sandhills of Nebraska are one of his favorite stretches of 83, he said. Magnuson's program in McCook was sponsored by the Norris Foundation and Norris Institute. His books will be available at the museum.

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