HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUG EATERS!
By the later years of the nineteenth century, "Bug Eaters" had replaced "Squatters" as the Nebraska nickname. According to John A. MacMurphy, secretary of the Nebraska Territorial Pioneers Association, writing in November 1894, the bug eater appellation probably originated during the grasshopper invasions of the 1870s. An easterner came to Nebraska to visit relatives and, on his return home, was asked about conditions here. According to MacMurphy's account, the man responded, "Oh, everything is gone up there. The grasshoppers have eaten the grain up, the potato bugs ate the 'taters all up, and now the inhabitants are eating the bugs to keep alive." Some newspaperman heard the comment and published it as a joke.