Last year’s Hidden Treasures and Fading Places are detailed at Heritage Nebraska’s blogs, but I thought I’d highlight the ones in Central Nebraska:

Hidden Treasures:

Hamilton Avenue Church, Hastings
Prairie Loft Center for Outdoor Agricultural Learning, Hastings

Fading Places:

Archeological sites statewide
Aurora Apothecary/Knights of Pythias Hall, Aurora (which was partially rebuilt last year)
Hastings Junior High School and endangered schools statewide (Hastings’ school was bought last year with plans for renovation)
Naval Ammunition Depot, Adams and Clay counties
Oregon Trail statewide
Rural schools statewide

A couple of friends asked me yesterday what nifty small-town sites were worth visiting in Central Nebraska, which got me thinking about my own list of Central Nebraska hidden treasures* (as you can tell, I’m a bit of an outdoorsy type):

*You’ll notice there’s several very cool, outdoorsy spots in Central Nebraska I didn’t include, like Calamus and Sherman reservoirs, the Nebraska Nature & Visitor Center, Rowe Sanctuary and so on. I didn’t include them because while they may be treasures, they’re not very hidden.

Olson Nature Preserve, Albion: I visited last March and was amazed at the juxtaposition of so many ecosystems in such close proximity — a spring-fed river, forest, wetlands and even the eastern edge of the Sandhills. Worth a stop if you’re headed north on Highway 14.

Happy Jack Chalk Mine, Scotia: I’ve only checked out the mine while it was set up for Haunted Hollow, which was pretty cool (and scary) in its own right. But Happy Jack is more than scary: It’s the only underground diatomic mine in the U.S. that’s open to the public.

Central Nebraska’s vineyards and wineries: I’ve only visited Miletta Vista near St. Paul and Cedar Hills near Ravenna, and both have sensational views and a wonderfully relaxed ambience. I know George Spencer Vineyard near Gibbon (which is apparently temporarily closed?) and Prairie Creek Vineyards near Central City have been popular, too.

Fort Hartsuff, Elyria: In the last year, Fort Hartsuff has gotten a lot of support from surrounding towns and beyond, which is a great thing — it’s one of the country’s few remaining Plains and Indian Wars forts, and it’s in great shape. The wide open-ness of the Valley County hills give it as ”Old West” of a feel as anything else in Central Nebraska.

Broken Arrow Wilderness, Fullerton: This former church camp, now owned by Doug and Darla Russell, includes a beautiful bluff along the Loup River that also boasts some cool history (it was the site of the first Independence Day celebration in Nebraska, in 1844). Great place for a getaway.

That’s my short list of Central Nebraska’s hidden treasures: What would you nominate? I’d love to hear your picks.

You can check out the whole study here, and one table on page 21 stood out to me: It details where the visitors to four of Central Nebraska’s main crane viewing sites came from. Here are the percentages:

Central Nebraska     12%
Other Nebraska        39%
Iowa                             11%
Colorado                     9%
Missouri                      3%
Kansas                         4%
Other states               20%
Other countries       1%

That’s only one out of eight crane center visitors who come from our area (they defined it as a 12-county area, but I can’t find out which counties). Almost as many come from Iowa alone. Almost exactly half come from outside Nebraska.

I’m surprised that the number of visitors from Central Nebraska is so low — particular in a year with a weak economy, when many people might be more inclined to take shorter trips, closer to home. Now, I’d imagine that many crane-watchers from the area are more inclined to view them from other places outside the main crane-watching sites; many of them may have a favorite out-of-the way spot or a friend’s piece of land that might work perfect. Still, this means that out of the 27,000 people who, the researchers estimate, visit one of these four sites each spring, just more than 3,000 are from Central Nebraska.

According to many migration and aviary experts, the crane migration in Central Nebraska is virtually unique — one of the Plains’ signature natural events. It’s also, with the possible exception of Nebraska’s Junk Jaunt, our area’s single biggest tourist attraction by number of visitors. It draws observers from around the country and the world, yet relatively few from our own area.

Why? I suspect it’s mostly because the phenomenon is so old-hat to native Nebraskans — we’ve been around it for so long that we don’t realize it’s special, or if we did, we don’t care much anymore. Renee Seifert, executive director of the Grand Island/Hall County Convention and Visitors Bureau, put it well: “Those birds have been coming here as long as people have been here, and so for them it’s just another normal, natural occurrence. I think people don’t understand that this particular phenomenon doesn’t occur anywhere else other than the central Platte River valley.”

So what do you think? Do we Central Nebraskans just not get it, or is there another reason so few of us visit the crane-watching centers in our own backyard?