The Eighth Wonder of the World

Flip a Nebraska state quarter and if it comes up tails, you'll see an image of the eighth wonder of the natural world. Although Chimney Rock – located along the Oregon Trail between Bridgeport and Gering isn't on any list of the wonders of the world – it was to many thousands of immigrants on the Oregon Trail, quite possibly the visual highlight of the trip.

It's quite likely that the vast majority of those who came west had only heard of the Seven Wonders of the World, and to their way of thinking, Chimney Rock was surely the eighth. By the 1840s, the already-famous landmark was included in t...