Thirty Swedish settlers in Harlan and Phelps counties organized Bethel Lutheran Church on November 12, 1877, at the home and post office of Gustaf Hanson, which was located seven miles south and two miles east of Holdrege in Harlan County.
Their first church, a small sod structure, was built here in Phelps County on a plot of ground in the N.W. quarter of Section 31, Divide Precinct, donated by Mathias Hedlund. A cemetery located south of the church was receiving graves as late as 1932. The native prairie grass serves as a reminder of the past.
Lay pastors serving the congregation were Olof Hedlund and C. J. Johnson. Pastor J. E. Swanborn was the first called pastor. The sod church was replaced in 1884 by a frame church built in Holdrege. In 1892, a frame building was erected at this site to be used during the summer months as a "Swede School" for the children of the congregation. The present congregation recognized with thankfulness the commitment and sacrifice these early pioneers made to affirm their Christian faith.
]]>Civil War veteran P. C. Funk came to Divide Township in Phelps County in 1877 and purchased 160 acres of land two miles north of the present town. By 1883 the Nebraska-Colorado Railroad, now the Burlington Northern, had extended its line as far west as Holdrege. Through the efforts of P. C. Funk, railroad officials were persuaded to establish the Funk townsite along the railroad between Axtell and Holdrege.
The village was platted in May 1887 on land purchased from August Anderson for $2,500. A townsite committee consisted of J. S. Johnson, William Johnson, Frank Johnson, George Johnson, P. C. Funk, Alfred Johnson, Charles Skallberg, Swan M. Milner, and C. F. Franzen.
The first grain elevator and house were built by L. T. Brooking, who later became the town's first postmaster and editor of the newspaper, the Funk Enterprise. In 1910 the Fridhem Lutheran Church moved to Funk. The town survived three serious fires and faced difficult times during the drouth and depression of the 1930s. Irrigation came to the area in 1938 and improved the life of farmers and villagers.
]]>Bertrand was platted by the Lincoln Land Company in June 1885, and the tracks of the Burlington Railroad soon reached here from Holdrege. The village was named in honor of Alonzo Bertrand Minor, a railroad official and later secretary of the Lincoln Land Company. Bertrand was incorporated on December 11, 1885, and the articles of incorporation were officially adopted by the Board of Trustees on December 22.
Swedes and Germans were the predominant ethnic groups who settled here beginning in the late 1870s. Many settlers claimed government land while others purchased farms from the railroads. Their deep religious faith led to the establishment of seven churches in and around Bertrand. A frame school was built in 1888; it was replaced by a brick structure in 1909. A new school building was occupied in 1958. Over twenty rural districts were consolidated to form present District 54.
Although Bertrand lies in a rich agricultural region, drought caused major crop failures during the 1890s and again in the 1930s. The completion of the Tri-County Project in 1941 brought irrigation which has become a mainstay of the area's agricultural economy.
]]>During World War II, a prisoner-of-war internment camp was located directly north of here. The camp had its beginning in a request by the Holdredge New Industries Committee for a federal conscientious-objector camp to help relieve the severe war-time farm labor shortage. Instead, a prisoner-or-war camp was built.
Planning for the camp began in June, 1943. By November, construction had been completed on approximately seventy buildings and seven miles of concrete road. Guard personnel were awaiting the arrival of prisoners. The camp contained three prison compounds, which held a total of 3,000 men. The Atlanta camp also administered smaller branch internment camps in Nebraska. The prisoners at Atlanta were German soldiers captured in the North Africa and Italian campaign. Some 600 military and 130 civilian personnel provided security and maintenance. One prisoner reportedly escaped but returned to the camp voluntarily.
The prisoners-of-war were a valuable source of farm labor in the area until the camp was phased out in 1945-46. Material removed from the site provided lumber for postwar constructed and concrete rip-rap for Tri-County irrigation ditches.
]]>Soils in the Holdrege series are recognized by features of their "profile" created by horizontal layers that are the result of the prairie environment. Holdrege soils exist on 1.8 million acres of landscape in central Nebraska that is the result of geologic processes operating over tens of thousands of years. The soils formed under mixed grasses, in a climate where moisture stress is common, but where enough movement of water through the profile has resulted in downward movement of clays and lime. These processes have led to a soil with thick, dark-colored topsoil, clay-enriched subsoil, and a substratum that contains free lime.
Holdrege soils were initially found during the soil survey of Phelps County in 1917. Their natural fertility, desirable tilth, and the landscape on which they exist join with irrigation and skillful farm management to provide a valuable agricultural resource. The legislature designated Holdrege Silt Loam as the Nebraska State Soil in 1979. This is a soil of which Nebraskans can be proud and one that we should conserve because it must sustain our agriculture for generations to come.
]]>This monument, dedicated to the early pioneers, marks the location of Sacramento, one of the first towns in Phelps County.
Sacramento was established between 1876 and 1878 with an estimated area population of two hundred. Numerous businesses were erected of sod and lumber. There was a sod school house, also used for religious services, a post office, grocery store, dry goods and general store, a hotel, butcher shop, drug store, a printing shop, hardware and implement business, livery stable, blacksmith shop, lumber yard and a two-story flour mill. A physician and an attorney established offices here. The town pump was located in the center of the road intersection. The Phelps County Pioneer newspaper was first published here in 1879.
In late 1883 most of the businesses moved to the new settlement of Holdrege where the Burlington Railroad had just been completed; several moved two miles north to a new Sacramento. School District No. 8, which was organized in 1876, continued here until 1952 when it was consolidated with the Wilcox School.
]]>Through this valley passed the Oregon Trail, highway for early explorers, fur traders, California-bound gold seekers, freighters, and brave pioneers seeking new homes in the West. Traffic was especially heavy from 1843 to 1866. At times as many as 800 wagons passed this point daily, heading both directions.
The Pony Express passed through the valley, followed by the first telegraph lines. This was also the military road to western destinations. Beginning in 1847, the Mormons broke a new trail on the north side of the Platte.
Indian raids by the Sioux and Cheyenne were severe in the 1860's, and several attacks occurred near here. During the Plum Creek Massacre a few miles west, wagons were burned and several people killed or captured.
Huge herds of buffalo once roamed these prairies, often stopping traffic on the trail. In the 1870's hunters slaughtered them by the thousands.
Today the Platte Valley is one of the nation's rich agricultural areas, disproving the opinion of early explorers who saw the Great Plains only as the Great American Desert.
]]>