Markers tagged "Hall County": 16
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WWI Red Cross Canteen
As troop trains began moving in late 1917, it became clear that soldiers needed food between stops at military installations. U.S. Secretary of War Newton Baker requested assistance from the Red…
Fonner Park
Due to financial hardships, the former 80-acre Hall County fairground was sold in 1932. In April 1953 area farmers, ranchers, and civic leaders founded two organizations to establish a new permanent…
Farmstead Resettlement Community
During the Great Depression, millions of Americans lost their jobs, savings, and homes. Within his first 100 days in office, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began to deliver on his New Deal promise to…
Rerouting of the Lincoln Highway
The Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway, was completed in 1915. As the number of automobiles on the highway increased, concerns about highway safety grew along with it. In 1922 the…
Farm Families Displaced
In February 1942 U.S. Senator George Norris announced the selection of a central Nebraska site for a new military ordnance plant. On March 25 a condemnation action was filed in federal court against…
Schimmer's Lake
Martin Schimmer, owner of Sand Krog Tavern, desired to create a recreational lake south of Grand Island. Excavation of a 20-acre man-made lake and construction of a Wood River diversion dam was…
Doniphan 1887 Fire
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…
Cairo: Oasis of the Prairie
Cairo (pronounced 'Care-Oh') began as a railroad town along the Burlington line. Agents of the Lincoln Land Company, a Burlington subsidiary, purchased the Hall County farmsteads of George and Henry…
Platte Valley Academy
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.…
Smith-Anderson Attack
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…
Grand Island Veterans Home
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…
Tornado Hill
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…
Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant
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…
Solon H. Borglum "Sculptor of the Prairie"
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…
St. Joseph and Grand Island Railroad
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…
The O.K. Store
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…