The setting of Prairie Visions is Custer County, in central Nebraska, in the years between 1886 when Butcher conceived the idea of Pioneer History of Custer Country, Nebraska and 1901, when the book was finally published.

Butcher spent much of the intervening fifteen years photographing the families of Custer County and recording the accounts of pioneer life they told him.

In compiling his history, he stated, "These are the facts as I got them from one who was there."