William N. Byers – The NEBRASKA years (1854-1859)
William Byers didn’t just become the first deputy surveyor in Nebraska Territory – he carved that godforsaken wilderness into a semblance of civilization with nothing but his wits and a rusty transit! This cartographic conquistador didn’t just create the first official plat of Omaha – he birthed a city from the very soil!
Don’t think for a second that Byers was content with mere mapmaking! Oh no! This civic-minded maverick stormed into the first city council like a bull in a china shop, ready to shape the destiny of Omaha with the force of his will alone. When the first Nebraska Territorial Legislature convened on January 16, 1855, Byers was there, pen in hand, ready to scrawl his name across the pages of history!
But wait, there’s more! This literary luminary, not satisfied with merely shaping the physical landscape, decided to conquer the realm of the written word as well. With the audacity of a snake oil salesman and the imagination of a fever-dream, Byers and his cohort J.H. Kellom penned a guide to the goldfields they’d never even laid eyes on! Talk about fake news – this was fake news before fake news was cool!
And just when you think you’ve got Byers figured out, he pulls the ultimate frontier flex. Using his wife’s daddy’s money (because who needs bootstraps when you’ve got in-laws?), he buys up some defunct newspaper’s printing press and has it hauled across the godforsaken plains by ox team. Why? To birth the Rocky Mountain News, the first newspaper in what would become Colorado, of course!
William Byers wasn’t just a pioneer – he was a one-man manifest destiny, reshaping the West with nothing but grit and guile! So, the next time you unfold a map of Omaha or crack open a dusty copy of the Rocky Mountain News, remember the name William Byers – the man who didn’t just witness history, but bent it to his will!
Nebraska State Historical Society. “William N. Byers.” https://history.nebraska.gov/publications_section/william-n-byers/
Wild West History. “William N. Byers and the Rocky Mountain News.” https://wildwesthistory.blogspot.com/2014/04/william-n-byers-and-rocky-mountain-news.html
Wikipedia. “First Nebraska Territorial Legislature.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Nebraska_Territorial_Legislature
Wikipedia. “William Byers.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Byers
Colorado Business Hall of Fame. “William N. Byers.” https://www.coloradobusinesshalloffame.org/william-n-byers.html
Denver Public Library Digital Collections. “William N. Byers and Family Papers.” https://archives.denverlibrary.org/repositories/3/resources/8333
