Softball gained popularity in Nebraska during the Great Depression and World War II as an athletic opportunity for girls and women. It continued to be a source of underappreciated community…

The village of Cowles, founded in 1878 and incorporated in 1912, in 1913 approved a bond issue of $14,000 to construct a three-story brick schoolhouse on this site. It was completed in 1915. Classes…

District 35 provided education through the eighth grade from 1879 until 1958. The schoolhouse sat upon Felix Alexander Killough's homestead, filed January 2, 1879, which adjoined the homestead of his…

Three German Lutheran congregations, Zion, Salem, and Emmanuel, built churches in Stillwater Precinct, Webster County, Nebraska. Emmanuel was the last to build and the last to disband. Emmanuel…

Benjamin Wagoner homesteaded this land in 1870. In 1882 his widow, Catharine Fouts Wagoner, gave these 2 1/2 acres in his memory "for the benefit of the community at large and the religious people…

Built ca. 1876, this is the house in which Willa Cather lived from 1884 to 1890. She describes it in "Old Mrs. Harris," in "The Best Years," and in this quotation from Song of the Lark: "They…

The St. Falconieri Catholic Church was built in 1883 of brick fired at Red Cloud. It served Red Cloud's Catholic congregation until 1906 when it was sold and converted into a private residence. Here,…

Built in 1897, the main section of Red Cloud's Burlington Depot contained sleeping quarters on the second floor, and freight room, agent's office, and waiting room below. The building was moved here…

Built in 1884 on the corner of Second and Walnut, the Grace Protestant Episcopal Church was moved to its present location in 1891. The brick veneer was added sometime after 1922. Willa Cather joined…

Willa Cather first came to Webster County from Virginia in 1883 at the age of nine. The vast open prairies of Nebraska made a lasting impression on her. "This country was mostly wild pasture and as…

On April 10, 1871, Acting Governor William James issued a proclamation calling for the organization of Webster County, with officials to be elected nine days later. The dugout of Silas Garber, later…

Red Cloud, named for the Oglala Sioux chief, was founded early in 1871 on homestead land filed upon by Silas Garber and company July 17, 1870, at Beatrice, the nearest land office. It is one of the…

Near here was a large permanent village of the Republican band of the Pawnee tribe which may have been occupied as early as 1777. On September 25, 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike visited the village…

Here on the Divide between the Republican and the Little Blue lived some of the most courageous people of the frontier. Their fortunes and their loves live again in the writings of Willa Cather,…