If one thinks of Nebraska the thought is usually of cornfields and the wide open prairies of the west. I looked up Nashway, it was in Lincoln, Nebraska, the state capitol. Where they also made the Cushman Scooters, and before the scooters, small flywheel engines for the farmers in pre-electric days. You can also think of the Golden Rod oil cans made in Hastings Nebraska still, the same ones now sold by Lee Valley. Golden Rod is the state flower. Vise-Grips by Petersen, made in DeWitt Nebraska. Or were til recently. Lincoln, and Omaha has long had small jobbers and mfg. going on. Omaha used to be known as the mattress center, were at least 6 mattress companies. In the 1920s there was a Ford assembly plant there too. Shipping was and is big as the home of the Union Pacific Railroad. Gone now but the Union Pacific shops in downtown Omaha would now rate a first class tour by anybody with a hint of the mechanical in their blood. Imagine a single shop that could cast, machine, plate, weld, and assemble a locomotive.
