Sarpy project to analyze land usage

With so many newcomers moving to Sarpy County each year, it's easy to understand why many people may not know about the area's history or understand how a county with rural roots is becoming so urbanized.

But a project by Emerging Terrain, an educational nonprofit research and design group, could change that.

Emerging Terrain received a $50,000 Our Town Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the project, which will study the history of Sarpy County and its land use and development. The project will conclude with an exhibition somewhere along La Vista's 84th Street.

Though residents may not be familiar with Emerging Terrain, they may have seen one of the group's most recent projects: the enormous murals on grain elevators along Interstate 80 in Omaha.

Emerging Terrain Director Anne Trumble, who is leading the Sarpy project, has strong ties to the county. She grew up near Papillion on a farm at 54th Street and Nebraska Highway 370. Her father, Charlie, still farms there. She also is related to the Trumbles for whom Trumble Park Elementary School is named.

"My family homesteaded there in the late 1800s, so this is all hitting pretty close to home," Trumble said. "It definitely kind of comes from me watching the county change so drastically and wanting to get some of that recorded in a way that might expose some possibilities."

Trumble's plan for the two-year project is an in-depth mapping study, which will look at each of the county's 253 Jeffersonian sections, each about one square mile. The research will look at how the land has changed ownership and developed over time.

Part of the study will be to meet with area farmers, tour the county and collect stories to document the area's history.

From there, Emerging Terrain will turn that information into an exhibit open to the public. The group's goal is to set up the exhibit inside and outside the former Walmart building on 84th Street. The exhibition also would reconfigure the parking lot with structures and plantings.

The structures would display the group's research and projectors would play the many interviews. The inside of the building would be a museum-like setting displaying more of the project's findings and the county's history.

"It's something pretty unique and different and especially for Sarpy County," Trumble said. "We like to think on this scale and think on things that are new."

The exhibition is planned to open in 2013, running from May to November.

Trumble said that while locating the exhibition in the former Walmart building would repurpose the area, the location also would serve a bigger purpose. The state of 84th Street's development, with many vacant buildings and plans for renewal and redevelopment, would serve as an excellent backdrop for the planning and development-focused project.

"All those vacant big-box stores, they are kind of an interesting space to put all this information in and talk about how the county has developed and what might be next," she said.

Trumble said she hopes some of the ideas or information in the exhibition might weave their way into how the area is redeveloped.

Emerging Terrain is partnering with the Sarpy County Board of Commissioners, Sarpy County Tourism and the Sarpy County Historical Museum for the project. For more information, visit emergingterrain.org.