Westward Ho! Down Below: Archaeological Applications of Aerial Photography and Thermography at the Western Outpost of Alkali Station, Nebraska

Summary

During the 1860s, Alkali Station, Nebraska served a brief but colorful role as a Pony Express Station, a post office, a stage station, and a military post during the westward expansion of the United States. With the coming of the railroads, Alkali Station, like so many other frontier outposts, became obsolete, and it was abandoned. Its structures fell into ruin, and soon assorted depressions and rises were all that remained. At ground level, spatial patterning of the site’s visible features is not readily discernible, but the site’s location in the Nebraska grasslands is ideal for examining cultural features from the air. Available aerial images were of insufficient resolution, so low-altitude aerial reconnaissance of Alkali Station was undertaken, and high-resolution digital photographs and thermal images of the site were collected. Analysis of these images has provided valuable new insights into this all but forgotten outpost on the American frontier.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions) 2018   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

Keywords

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 1076