The Salem Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1883. This area, including portions of Kearney, Phelps, and Harlan counties, once had the largest number of Swedish immigrants in rural Nebraska.
The original sod church was built in 1884. The present 1898 building shows the transition from Sweden to America both through its architecture and through the congregation's choice of denomination. The Carpenter Gothic building has an Akron-style floor plan. In addition to the sanctuary, it has a church parlor for social events and Sunday School classes.
The Salem congregation felt the Lutheran Augustana Synod was too much like the state church in Sweden, so they chose to organize as Methodists instead. Some founding members began as members of Bethany Lutheran Church, located southeast of Axtell, and of Fridhem Lutheran Church, originally located east of Funk. Rather than sharing a pastor, the congregation wanted their own minister. Their first pastor was Carl Charnquist, a Swedish Methodist circuit-riding minister recruited from Texas. The Salem Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church complex was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
]]>Twenty miles northeast of here is Spade Ranch headquarters, a National Register of Historic Places site. In Ellsworth are the business offices (built c. 1890) and home (built 1902) of cattleman Bartlett Richards (1862-1911), a Vermont native. Richards, brothers DeForest and Jarvis, Will Comstock, Charles Jameson, and others began assembling the Spade about 1888. By 1900 its range comprised some 500,000 acres, principally in the most rugged Sandhill areas of Sheridan and Cherry counties. Much of the land was in public domain subject to homesteading. Farmers who tried to cultivate Sandhill homesteads usually failed, and in the 1890s the Spade illegally fenced the almost uninhabited land, drilled wells, introduced Hereford cattle, constructed trails, and built telephone lines to ranches and towns. Spade acreage shrank after 1905, when Richards pleaded guilty to fencing government land. After unsuccessful federal court appeals from a 1906 land-conspiracy conviction, Richards was imprisoned for one year at Hastings, where he died, aged 49. Today the core of the Spade is owned by the Bixbys, associates of Richards since 1908. That the ranges remain cattle country today attests to the vision of early Sandhill ranchers.
]]>The Springfield Community Hall was constructed between 1938 and 1940 by the Works Progress Administration, a national relief program during the Great Depression. Construction of the hall, using sandstone quarried a few miles west of town, bolstered the local economy by employing area men.
Since its completion, the building has provided Springfield with a public facility which has been used for educational, recreational, and political events.
In 1998 the structure was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
]]>Just north of here the Camp Clarke bridge crossed the North Platte River. The bridge was built in the spring of 1876 by entrepreneur Henry T. Clarke to improve the trail from the Union Pacific Railroad at Sidney, Nebraska, to the gold mining towns in the Black Hills. The route first supplied the Sioux at Red Cloud Agency on the White River and the army at adjacent Camp Robinson; by 1876 the trail extended to Custer City and Deadwood in Dakota Territory. In 1878- 79 some twenty-two million pounds of freight was shipped over the trail.
Clarke's bridge was about 2,000 feet long with 61 wooden trusses. Tolls of $2 to $6 were assessed on the hundreds of freight wagons, stagecoaches, and riders that crossed. A hamlet known as Camp Clarke, with a hotel, store, saloon, and post office, sprang up at the south end of the bridge. A log blockhouse stood on an island in the river near the north bank. Although travel on the trail declined after 1880, the bridge continued in local use until about 1900. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places.
]]>This building is Hamilton County's third courthouse. The first was built in Orville City, the original county seat, in 1870. After five elections, Aurora was chosen as county seat in 1876. To assure the victory, the town constructed the second courthouse here in Central Park Square in 1877. It was destroyed by fire in January 1894.
In March 1894 the county board hired architect William Gray of Lincoln, who had designed several Nebraska courthouses, to provide plans for a new building. Voters approved $60,000 in bonds for its construction and furnishing. The courthouse was completed in 1895.
The Hamilton County Courthouse is built in the county Capitol Style, emulating the shape of the U.S. Capitol. Here a tall spire is used instead of a central dome, and red brick with Colorado sandstone instead of marble. The architectural detailing follows american Round Arch designs made popular by Boston architect H.H. Richardson. The stability of county government is suggested by the building's impressive exterior and by the ornate white oak woodwork inside. The courthouse is listed in The National Register of Historic Places.
]]>Broken Bow was platted 1882 by Jesse Gandy. He donated lots to people who would build a house or establish a business. He did this to influence voters to make the new town the Custer County seat, which they did in an election that fall. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad reached Broken Bow in 1886. Anticipating new commerce, the Lincoln Land Company purchased large tracts of land. The town flourished with the arrival of the railroad. The region’s rich agricultural territory was now open to distant markets, and Broken Bow became a regional trade center.
Gandy’s plat reserved one block as a public square surrounded by business lots. The square has served as the commercial district’s focal point, landscaped with trees, walkways, and a bandstand. The town square centers on buildings dating to the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, representing the town’s periods of development. The Broken Bow commercial historic district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
]]>The Neligh Mills, built from locally fired brick in 1873 by John D. Neligh, was the first business and industry in the then newly platted town. Later owners and operators of the mill included William C. Galloway, Stephen F. Gilman and J. W. Spirk. Milling operations began in 1874 with two runs of stone. Roller mills were added in 1878, and all new roller mills were installed in 1898. Flour from the Neligh Mills was widely sold throughout the Middle West. Better known brands produced here include Neligh Patent Flour, So-Lite Flour and Crescent brand feeds.
A good mill was a major factor in the growth of Nebraska communities during the 1870's and 1880's. Mills turned locally grown grain into flour, cutting down on expensive long distance shipping. Mills with an ample water supply and situated on main rail lines were able to produce quantities in excess of local needs, and sometimes received lucrative government contracts with the Army and Indian Bureau or for overseas export.
In 1969 the Legislature authorized the Nebraska State Historical Society to acquire and preserve this mill as a symbol of our agricultural history. Its importance was also recognized in 1969 by entry on the National Register of Historic Places.
]]>The Central Hastings Historic District began at this site in 1878 when Samuel Alexander, using his 160-acre homestead, created the first northern addition to Hastings. This National Register district physically documents the three major periods of growth that occurred in Hastings from 1880 through 1950. It extends approximately from 7th Street north to 12th Street and from Colorado Avenue west to Bellevue Avenue. The historic district includes 386 homes from the Victorian, Arts and Crafts, and Modern periods.
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