8 | North Platte Travel Guide 2023
& CULTURE Arts JAPANESE EXHIBIT New at Lincoln County Historical Museum
Griffin said the immigrants were looking for a way to send money back for their fam- ilies. “They liked it so well here that as soon as their family obligations of sending money were done, a lot of them just stayed,” Griffin said. “That’s the roots of the very first Japa- nese population.” In Lincoln County, “roughly there were about 200 people to begin with in the North Platte area and that fluctuated,” Griffin said. “They were able to get brides over here, even though there was a gentleman’s agree- ment that didn’t allow additional immigra- tion from Japan.” Griffin said the Steve Kay of North Platte had brought in Lincoln County native Roy Yanagida, now of Lincoln, to discuss the museum project. “Roy grew up on a farm — his family ac- tually farmed the land that Keith Neville owned,” Griffin said. “The Japanese parents were all Issei, first-generation immigrants, who couldn’t own land because they weren’t United States citizens and Nebras- ka has an alien land law that is still on the books today. If you’re not a U.S. citizen, you can’t own land outside of the city.” The Yanagidas worked the land, and the local John Deere dealer invited Roy to start working for him at the dealership. Yanagi- da later opened his own John Deere dealer- ship in Broken Bow. When Griffin and Yanagida finished talking about the proposed exhibit, Yan- agida offered to donate $50,000 toward the project. “Roy will tell you that his dealership is why he can afford to give us the money to do this,” Griffin said. “What he did was he challenged us. He gave us $25,000 and if we could raise another $25,000, he’d give us the other $25,000.” Griffin said the museum ended up rais-
JOB VIGIL PHOTO Lincoln County Historical Museum curator Jim Griffin points out the wallpaper placed in prepa- ration for the completion of the new Japanese exhibit that will open May 1.
BY JOB VIGIL job.vigil@nptelegraph.com
a history of many of the Japanese families who settled in Lincoln County. The museum is open 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Mon- day through Saturday and 1 - 5 p.m. Sunday from May through September. “Most of them came because of the rail- road,” Griffin said of the Japanese immi- grants. “Some came during or before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Most came after that, because even though Japan won the war, economic conditions were horrible because of it.”
A conversation with a volunteer at the Lincoln County Historical Museum in North Platte prompted curator Jim Griffin to explore further. The idea was to develop an exhibit to rec- ognize the impact the Japanese community had in Lincoln County during the early 20 th century. The grand opening of the new exhibit is May 1. It will include artifacts, photos and
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