1880 Diller 1980

Diller's showpiece came in its fourth decade. In 1912, the year an 1880s opera house burned, the widow of town founder William H. Diller built a three-story brick block at Commercial and Hilton streets in his memory, with two storefronts below and an auditorium of about 42 by 67 feet, seating some 400, upstairs. Hansen & Miller of Diller painted its grapes, lilies and roses, and the money ran out before the balcony was finished. Touring companies, commencements and home-talent shows filled it, and it joined the National Register in 1988 as the Anna C. Diller Opera House.

What the plaque says

1880 Diller 1980 Diller lies in the Blue River Valley near the route of the old Oregon and California trails. Freighters from Atchison and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, passed near here while supplying military outposts to the West. Settlers in covered wagons, the Pony Express, and stage lines also followed the route. In 1854 the Oto and Missouri tribes conveyed their lands to the U.S. Government in exchange for a reservation of some 160,000 acres along the Nebraska-Kansas border; Diller lies at its western end. The reservation was slowly surrounded by advancing white settlement and in 1869 three men pre-empted the land on which Diller is now situated. In 1876 the Indians agreed to sell part of their reserve, and in 1881 they moved to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. Platted in 1880, Diller was named for Samuel Diller, who assisted early settlers. David Kelley was the first postmaster. In 1881 the Republican Valley Railroad, later part of the Burlington system, completed tracks into the town. Incorporated on April 22, 1885, Diller reached a maximum population of about 500 between 1910 and 1920. Diller main- tains the proud spirit of its pioneer forefathers after a century of the Good Life. Diller Bicentennial Community Club Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rock Creek Station State Historical Park — 6.4 mi
  A stage and Pony Express station on the trail southeast of Fairbury where James Hickok killed David McCanles in July 1861, with the court papers that cleared him, and deep wagon ruts.
• Homestead National Historical Park — 13 mi
  Daniel Freeman's claim on Cub Creek near Beatrice, one of the first filed under the Homestead Act, with a one-room school, a homesteader's cabin, restored prairie and the land's earlier owners.

More markers nearby

• The Oketo Cutoff — 7.8 mi
• Jansen — 9.4 mi
• Plymouth — 14 mi
• Hollenberg Ranch Pony Express Station — 15 mi