This was the first homestead registered after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law.

Meet cowboys and ancient beardogs at this one-of-a-kind crossroads of Western history.

For one month, the fields and skies of Gibbon, Nebraska, come alive with one of the largest gatherings of sandhill cranes in North America.

This Great Plains museum pays tribute to both the prosperity and tragedy of the North American fur trade.

America's largest man-made forest was planted in an effort to bring back the past.

This replica small town lets visitors take a stroll through the story of progress in the U.S. via thousands of Americana artifacts.

When an ancient supervolcano erupted, some of Nebraska's prehistoric animals were forever preserved in ash.

Site of the 1879 Cheyenne Outbreak and the site where famed Sioux chief Crazy Horse met his fate.

Otherworldly rock formations and ancient fossils abound in this unique stretch of Nebraska badlands.

This erect, phallic geological spire wasn't always named so domestically.

An experimental, automotive replica of Stonehenge.

This 41,000-acre wetland complex is the largest marsh in the interior of the United States.

A diverse, expansive nature preserve in northeastern Kansas.

A whimsical monument marks the highest point in Kansas, not that you could tell by the looks of it.

This gravity-defying rock formation is one of Big Bend’s natural wonders.

Home to the largest urban bat colony in North America, estimated at 1.5 million bats.

The highest waterfall between the Rockies and the Appalachian Mountains.

Two gushing waterfalls of hot spring water within a block of each other.

The beginnings of one of America's most famous military officers.

Odd castle-like structures for collecting water sticking out of the Mississippi River.

The site of the first daylight, peacetime bank robbery by the James gang.

The final resting place of the legendary outlaw.

The life of one of America's pre-eminent painters is frozen in time in the home where he lived, worked, and died.

The only mill in the state that features a covered bridge.