Despite its pavement, Nebraska’s Highway 1 is just a country road with a couple small towns and corn and soybean farms between them.
It’s been a devastating year for those farmers, mostly families, some who have been planted there for generations. The soaring costs of fertilizer, diesel for combines and gas for their trucks, as well as the collapse of international soybean markets, have made just breaking even a pipedream.
Highway 1 is a thoroughfare of the economically besieged. The Nebraska farmers along its two-lane blacktop can often face bankruptcy, repossession and corporate takeovers. Yet the countryside remains achingly beautiful.
Perhaps my attraction comes from its frequent reminders of my childhood home in western Wisconsin. Maybe it’s because when your vehicle reaches a hilltop, the emptied brown fields roll to the horizon, pockmarked only by water towers, silos and farmyards with their shelterbelts of trees.
As a frequent traveler on that country road, I hoped to capture some of its beauty and share it with you. These images give an idea of why I cherish this particular stretch of highway.
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