Following U.S. entry into World War II, Kearney officials campaigned for establishment of an army air field at the site of the Keens Municipal Airport. Construction of the Kearney Army Air Field (KAAF), one of eleven in Nebraska, was approved on…

Pioneers settling in this area, including many Civil War veterans, bought five acres from the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad for $25 and established a school in 1875. Osco School District No. 6 deeded two acres for the Pleasant Prairie…

The Trail Which followed the south side of the Platte River was the main route to Oregon and California. Fur traders going to the Rocky Mountains took the first wagons over the trail in 1830. Oregon-bound missionaries followed in the mid-1830s, and…

Swedish immigrants began homesteading Mirage Township, Kearney County, in 1873. By 1876 these families had formed the Swedish Lutheran Church (Bethany Lutheran), the first church in Kearney County. The tempo of settlement increased with the coming…

The Boom Town played an important role in the West, and few Nebraska towns had such a boom history as Lowell. It was selected as a townsite by the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad in 1871, and its first businesses were soon established.…

The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad entered Nebraska at Plattsmouth in 1870 and built west to join the Union Pacific at Kearney Junction (now Kearney city) on September 3, 1872. The railroad bridge into Kearney was used for 104 years. It…

The growth of overland emigration to Oregon after 1842 resulted in the establishment of military posts across the West to protect travelers. The first post, Fort Kearny, was established in the spring of 1848 "near the head of the Grand…

Two miles to the east is the site of Walker's Ranch, an early Kearney County landmark. The ranch was established by Charles Walker in 1872 as a station on the government mail route from Kearney City to the Republican Valley. It consisted of a…

Following the 1848 establishment of Fort Kearny three miles east of here and the later expansion of overland commerce and emigration, the small commercial center of Kearney City was established near here in 1859. The town's more common name,…

In 1903 the legislature appropriated $50,000 to establish a state normal school in central or western Nebraska. After 111 ballots, the State Board of Education chose Kearney as the site. The city donated twenty acres on the west side of town for a…