Your Guide Book to the Pacific Railroad, 1879
Stations in Nebraska
Kearny Junction to North Platte and Ogallala
PRAIRIE FIRES
At night, the traveler gazing out the window while reclining in his berth. will see one of the most awful, yet grandest scenes of prairie life; a prairie fire. As the train comes near, the flames leap higher, 20 to 30 feet in the air. The first are usually set by the sparks from the locomotive.
KEARNY
JUNCTION (195 miles from Omaha, elevation 2,150 feet)
A lively enterprising town, it is the junction of the
Burlington and Missouri Railroad. It was laid out in September, 1872, and grown
very rapidly ever since; it now has a population of 1000 souls, six church
edifices, one daily newspaper, the Press, one weekly, the Times,
two brick bank buildings and other brick blocks. It has a daily stage line to
Bloomington, a thriving town some sixty miles south in the Republican Valley.
It has the vim and energy which usually characterizes Western
towns; it is an aspirant for the capital if it is ever moved from Lincoln.
Kearny Junction is very healthy, and invalids would here find
an agreeable resting place.
COZAD (245 miles from Omaha, elevation
2,480 feet)
Named by a gentleman from Cincinnati, Ohio, who purchased
about 40,000 acres of land here from the railroad company; laid out the town;
built quite number of houses; induced people to settle here; has resold a
good deal of his land but still has about 20,000 acres in the immediate
vicinity.
Some men of capital near Cozad, are interesting themselves in
in sheep raising, and frequently from this place west you will see large herds
of cattle.
Cozad has two or three stores, school-house, hotel, several
large dwellings, and with favorable seasons for growing crops in the future will
become quite a town.
NORTH
PLATTE (291 miles from Omaha, elevation 2,789 feet)
The end of another division of the Union Pacific Railroad. It is a thriving
city, and outside of Omaha has the most extensive machine and repair shops on
the line of the road. The roundhouse has twenty stalls, and it together with the
machine and repair shops are substantially made of brick.
In these shops engines and cars are either repaired or
entirely built over. About 150 men are given constant employment in the shops.
The town has about 2,000 inhabitants, two wide-awake
newspapers; the Republican being a weekly and the Western Nebraskian
being a semi-weekly. The Railroad House is the largest and leading hotel.
Near this city, in 1875, Col. E. D. Webster and Mrs. A. W.
Randall, wife of the late ex-postmaster-general Randall, formed a copartnership
to engage in the dairying business, and erected a cheese factory. During the
year they manufactured about 30 tons of cheese. Col. Webster says the only
drawback is the scarcity and unreliability of help, it being difficult to obtain
a sufficient number of "milkers" at a reasonable price.
OGALLALA
(341 miles from Omaha, elevation 3,190 feet)
It is destined to be the Texas town on the line of the
Union Pacific. The regular trail for driving cattle from Texas may be said to
terminate here. It is the head-quarters and outfitting place of a large number
of ranchmen, who have herds in this vicinity.
In 1875, it is claimed that nearly 60,000 head of Texas cattle were driven to
this point, and afterwards distributed to various parties to whom they were
sold. A large number of them were taken to the Indian agencies at Red Cloud and
Spotted Tail.
It has a depot, water tank, side tracks, cattle chutes,
store, one or two boarding-houses, saloon, etc.