By The Explore Nebraska History team
On this site stood a boarding high school owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church, founded to give young people in this region an opportunity to receive a Christian education. Attendance peaked at about 200 in the 1980s. Its highly…

By The Explore Nebraska History team
On February 5, 1862, Joseph P. Smith, his young sons William and Charles, and his grandchild Alexander Anderson were murdered while collecting logs along the north channel of the Platte River. While relations between Native Americans and white…

By The Explore Nebraska History team
First known as the Nebraska Soldiers and Sailors Home, the Grand Island Veterans Home was opened in 1887. The first home was a four-story Victorian building situated on 640 acres. The building soon became inadequate to house the veterans. Between…

By The Explore Nebraska History team
Seven tornadoes struck Grand Island and surrounding areas on the night of June 3, 1980. They were part of a supercell thunderstorm complex that produced eighteen tornadoes from Nebraska to West Virginia. The complex approached Grand Island from…

By The Explore Nebraska History team
Commonly known as the Cornhusker Ordnance Plant, the facility opened in 1942 and covered nearly 20 square miles. During World War II it produced artillery shells and various bombs weighing up to 2,000 pounds apiece. An explosion on May 26, 1945,…

By The Explore Nebraska History team
Solon H. Borglum (1868-1922), son of Danish Mormon emigrants, was a world-famous sculptor. From 1885 until 1893, Solon ran his father’s cattle ranch located in the South Loup Valley just east of this marker. The Borglums moved from Utah to Omaha…

By The Explore Nebraska History team
The first settlers of Hall County, Nebraska, nearly all of whom were German immigrants, arrived on July 5, 1857. They platted Grand Island City and established farms. The O.K. Store of Henry A. Koenig and Fred Wiebe, located near the Mormon Trail,…