Historical Marker · No. 561
Alkali Station
Keith County · Nebraska
Erected by Tom Kraus and Nebraska State Historical Society, 2019
In the Pony Express year, Richard F. Burton's mail coach reached Alkali Lake Station at 5 p.m. on August 11, as the heat eased. He found some exiles from Erin, as he put it, who supplied antelope meat and the unusual luxury of ice taken from the Platte. He tried to bathe in the river and found it flowing liquid mire. Alkali Lake itself was out of sight, and the driver told him he would see alkali lakes until he was sick of them. The stop is in his City of the Saints.
What the plaque says
Alkali Station Alkali Station played several important roles as a stopping place on the Overland Trail between 1859 and 1867. Established as a stagecoach relay station, it served as a Pony Express station in 1860-61, then as a base station along the transcontinental telegraph line. Alkali marked a point where the trail network fanned out toward various points to the west. As a large road ranche through the 1860s, it provided travelers with supplies, rested stock, and repair facilities. Alkali Station became a fortified army post during the Civil War. It housed cavalry units charged with maintaining the western flow of people and goods. Fighting occurred at the station, and troops based there took part in combat against Northern Plains tribes. Alkali Station fell into disuse with completion of the transcontinental railway system. Sod struc- tures and other facilities at the site were abandoned and allowed to decay. Never cultivated, it preserves evidence of its contribution to the development of the country's transportation system. Efforts by land owners and their neighbors have recognized and preserved the site. Tom Kraus Nebraska State Historical Society, 2019 Dedicated August 21, 2021 Alkalie Original Station April 3, 1860 - November 20, 1861
Where it stands
41.12712, -101.51865 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Lake McConaughy and Kingsley Dam — 9.1 miNebraska's largest reservoir, 22 miles of North Platte water and white sand beaches behind a 1941 hydraulic-fill dam, built so farms far downstream could water their crops.