page_title: A. T. Hill
section_title: Nebraska State Historical Society
hierarchical_section_title: A. T. Hill / Nebraska State Historical Society
caption_attribution_description: English: Nebraska State Historical Society building, located at 1500 R Street, on the campus of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska; seen from the south, looking northward along Centennial Mall.
context_page_description: Asa Thomas Hill, generally known as A. T. Hill, was an American businessman and archaeologist. His work on sites in and around Nebraska, with such collaborators as William Duncan Strong and Waldo Wedel, was instrumental in the development of Great Plains archaeology.
context_section_description: In 1933, Hill retired from the automobile dealership and moved from Hastings to Lincoln.  In that year, the Nebraska State Historical Society named him Director of the Museum and Field Archeology.
  Hill proved a great asset to the Society.  At a time when the Great Depression had forced deep budget cuts, he was able to work without a salary and to finance excavations out of his own pocket.  With his managerial ability and business acumen, he was able to secure federal funds to hire archaeological crews of unemployed persons, and to organize and direct the crews efficiently in the field.  From 1933 until 1941, when the United States' entry into World War II put a halt to it, he oversaw extensive excavation projects in Nebraska and Kansas.
  During the war, Hill concentrated on the museum, and on the study of material collected in previous years.  He managed the conversion of the museum from a library and research institution to one with popular appeal, and contributed his "unsurpassed" collection of Pawnee artifacts to it.
  With the conclusion of the war, Hill was eager to return to field work.  In 1947, he led a NSHS crew to Frontier County, Nebraska, where sites in the basin of Medicine Creek were threatened by the construction of the Medicine Creek Reservoir.  However, failing health forced him to retire in 1949.
  Hill died in Los Angeles in 1953.
caption: Nebraska State Historical Society building, constructed in 1953
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