The Meridian Road was organized in 1911 by a group of "good roads" boosters. Proposed as a direct north-south automobile route through the central United States, its name was derived from the Sixth Principal Meridian. In 1912 the route was largely established through six states, connection Winnipeg, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Meridian Road, later renamed the Meridian Highway, eventually extended to Mexico and became U.S. Highway 81. In northern Nebraska, the road connected Norfolk, Hadar, Pierce, Wausa, and Crofton, crossing the Missouri River at Yankton, South Dakota. The route of the highway was relocated in 1939, eventually bypassing all of the smaller communities from Norfolk to Yankton.
This marker stands on a segment of the original highway laid out in the fall of 1911, which followed section line roads north and west to Pierce. It includes a steel truss bridge built in 1915 and improvements such as concrete culverts and graveled roadbed dating to the 1920s. This segment has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is preserved and maintained by Pierce County.
]]>This bridge originally spanned Willow Creek southwest of Pierce. It was fabricated in 1913 by the Canton (Ohio) Bridge Company, which held Pierce County's bridge contract between 1905 and 1918. It was moved here in 1994.
The thirty-four-foot steel span is configured as a rigid-connected lattice pony truss, a very old truss type commonly used in wood for covered bridges. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1992, it was one of two of its type in Nebraska at the time.
]]>The first flour mill in Pierce County was constructed here about 1880 by Stephen F. Gilman. Power for its operation came from a dam on the north fork of the Elkhorn River. Flour from the mill was marketed widely under the "Golden Crescent" brand-name.
Flour milling was an important pioneer industry in Nebraska. Small mills processed locally-grown grain, provided jobs, and brought customers to patronize the stores of hometown merchants. The mill ponds provided recreation including fishing, swimming, and ice skating. The Pierce Mill was a mainstay of the area's economy until it was destroyed by fire on November 7, 1908. Though the mill was rebuilt, the importance of small-town mills had begun to wane; soon after a flood destroyed the mill dam in 1942, the Pierce Mill closed permanently.
In 1935 the City of Pierce acquired the mill site from Stephen F. Gilman's heirs and a new dam was built by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The resulting park was named in honor of the Gilman family. Subsequent improvements have expanded the park to its present fifty acres.
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