Stepping back in time. You get to see the people interacting with their environment and see the people using their material cultures. You get to see the people as they lived. I think it is really important for historians and students and scholars to look in the eyes of these pioneers and try to experience what they experienced. We continue our tour with lincoln, the brass got, with a tour of the cannard house. The house belong to the first secretary of state of nebraska and one of the men who chose lincoln as the state capital in 1867. Before lincoln became the village was the if you could call it that of lancaster. The population had been somewhere between 13 and 30. It was very, very small. There were no businesses here to speak of, the houses were very crude. When it was built, there is nothing here to attract the capital. Reason the capitol came here was for entirely different reasons. There was no navigable water here, there were no trees, there were no minerals, with the exception of salt. They thought the salt flats to the northwest of lincoln would make a good industry that would support the capitol, but the primary interest was not moving to lancaster. The primary interest was to move it out of omaha, for several reasons. The people in bellevue and other cities were upset they had not gotten the capital. They wanted out of omaha but one of the other features they were looking for was someplace close to the center of the population. So the requirements were drawn by thomas kinard, the first secretary of state of the state of nebraska. He true it so that he ultimately was on the Capital Commission along with the first governor of the state of nebraska and the first auditor. They made it the official commission and they are the ones that made the decision to move it here. The legislature stipulated they wanted, if they were going to move it, they wanted to move it once and for all, as far west as anybody lived in the state of nebraska. Spanish and french mapmakers and historians, travelers and explorers had designated the better part of the northwest portion of nebraska as the Great American desert. One had written on his map that west of this line, which is the west edge of current lancaster county, west of this common no man will ever live and nothing will ever grow. That was the Great American desert. So, the legislature reasoned if they moved the capital to the edge of that line, it would be in the Southeast Quadrant of the state of nebraska, it would still put the capital close to the center of the population. So, thomas kinard, the first secretary of state, came with the government and came with the republicans and nebraska became a state. He was interested in getting the capital out of omaha. He is considered the father of lincoln, because not only did he vote with the Capital Commission to move it to lincoln but was very instrumental in bringing about the original city of lincoln. The three Commission Members were having to make a statement because they had to rationalize their moving the capital of nebraska from omaha, a city of several thousand people, to a village of 13 to 30. So in what had to be a harebrained scheme, they had to go against the legislature in buying lots in lincoln and building houses of substance so they could show their confidence in this scheme. This house we are standing in has some interesting architectural features. The doorsills and windowsills were made of an experimental material called freer stone. The contractor was afraid it was not going to work, being experimental in nature, so they capped them with metal. Today, a house that did not contain freer stone would be the exception. Now it is known as concrete block. When a visitor comes today, they will see the house much as it would have been seen from the exterior by mr. Kennard, but as soon as you come inside, you will find the furniture, although all from the period, with the exception of a picture and boot jack were not the possessions of mr. Kennard. We have the parlor and dining room, the kitchen and office on the first floor, bedrooms on the second floor. There was a wing that extended to the south that was a kitchen wing. That has been torn off and at some point, consideration has been made to put it back and we know where it is at an the foundation is there. Other than that, it is a very simple floor plan