http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html
From the referenced site:
"Harold Cook, a rancher and geologist from Nebraska, had found the tooth in 1917, and in 1922 he sent it to Henry Fairfield Osborn, a paleontologist and the president of the American Museum of Natural History. Osborn identified it as an ape, and quickly published a paper identifying it as a new species, which he named Hesperopithecus haroldcookii."
"I have not stated that Hesperopithecus was either an Ape-man or in the direct line of human ancestry, because I consider it quite possible that we may discover anthropoid apes (Simiidae) with teeth closely imitating those of man (Hominidae), ..."
"Until we secure more of the dentition, or parts of the skull or of the skeleton, we cannot be certain whether Hesperopithecus is a member of the Simiidae or of the Hominidae." (Osborn 1922)
Most other scientists were skeptical even of the modest claim that the Hesperopithecus tooth belonged to a primate. It is simply not true that Nebraska Man was widely accepted as an ape-man, or even as an ape, by scientists, and its effect upon the scientific thinking of the time was negligible. For example, in his two-volume book Human Origins published during what was supposedly the heyday of Nebraska Man (1924), George MacCurdy dismissed Nebraska Man in a single footnote:
"In 1920 [sic], Osborn described two molars from the Pliocene of Nebraska; he attributed these to an anthropoid primate to which he has given the name Hesperopithecus. The teeth are not well preserved, so that the validity of Osborn's determination has not yet been generally accepted."
In fact, the identification of the tooth as peccary (pig-like), not apish, was made in 1927, and received front-page coverage in the NYT and articles in Nature and Science. As usual, the anti-evos had nothing to do with this.
Why do the anti-evos keep harping on a mistake that was corrected within a decade, and is more than 7 decades old? Don't they have any research in the interim?!