Hall County Sheriff Wedgwood received a telegram from W.J. Burger of Doniphan on November 27, 1887, informing him that half the town was in ashes. The previous evening residents of Doniphan reported hearing a small explosion. Upon investigation, they found nothing amiss and returned to their homes. A second, larger explosion 45 minutes later brought out residents who found the post office engulfed in flames. Without a local fire department, residents were powerless as the fire spread throughout the business district destroying the post office, bank, grocery store, millinery shop, butcher shop, and general store.
The sheriff found evidence of a botched robbery. Thieves had used explosives to access the post office safe, which held $200 in currency. $200-$300 in postage stamps, and registered letters. When the first charge failed to open the safe door, they used a larger charge. This blew the door over 15 feet and ignited the contents of the safe, leaving the thieves empty-handed. No one was arrested for the crime that caused $5,000 in damages. Doniphan's business district was rebuilt on the same site.
]]>In 1879 construction of tracks connecting the Union Pacific's main line at Grand Island with the St. Joseph and Western Railroad at Hastings provided a key link in a railroad empire controlled by New York financier, Jay Gould. The link freed the Union Pacific from the competition of connecting lines at its eastern terminus in Omaha by providing a route bypassing Iowa.
Like other railroads built throughout Nebraska in the 1880s, the St. Joe contributed to local settlement and development. In 1879 local pioneer William J. Burger platted the town of Doniphan midway between Grand Island and Hastings. The village and township were named after Col. John Doniphan of St. Joseph, Missouri, an attorney for the railroad.
After completion of the Grand Island line, the railroad was reorganized as the St. Joseph and Grand Island Railroad and for most of its history was part of the Union Pacific system. Construction of a Hastings to Gibbon cutoff in 1914 provided a shorter route to the Union Pacific main line, and use of the line through Doniphan gradually declined. It was abandoned in 1989.
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