Coffee Siding

The line that reached Coffee's siding did not stop at the state line. The Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley came into Harrison in June 1886, and its Wyoming Central company laid out the town of Lusk that July, built on to Glenrock in 1887 and reached the future site of Casper in June 1888, later pushing west toward Shoshoni, Riverton and Lander. The track beyond Casper was abandoned and salvaged in 1943, and in 1995 Union Pacific announced it would abandon the line from Orin to Casper. Near the marker a trestle remnant and an old rail bed survive.

What the plaque says

Coffee Siding Large pioneer ranches were established in this region of Nebraska in the 1870's and early 1880's. Charles F. Coffee was one of these pioneers, with ranch headquarters on Hat Creek in Nebraska and Rawhide Creek in Wyoming. By June, 1886, the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad (later the Chicago and North Western (reached the present site of Harrison. On August 15, Coffee shipped the first train load from Harrison to Chicago. Coffee Siding, located here to avoid higher freight rates in Wyoming, became an important shipping point for Nebraskans. Wyoming ranchers also trailed herds here for shipment. Near the 1,023 foot-long siding, Coffee built seven cattle pens. Cattle awaiting shipment were pastured on the Niobrara River south of here. As many as three cattle trains, each consisting of not less than fourteen cars, were sometimes shipped at a time. Ranching continues as the major industry in Sioux County, but development of better roads and use of huge cattle trucks have reduced dependence on railroads. Sidings and pens used continuously through the 1940's were removed in 1958, and little remains to mark Coffee Siding and the pioneer ranching activity it represented. Charles Franklin Coffee III Bill Brown Coffee Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Agate Fossil Beds National Monument — 23 mi
  A fossil quarry on the Niobrara that also keeps the gifts Red Cloud and other Lakota and Cheyenne visitors gave the ranching family who were their friends for thirty-five years.
• Toadstool Geologic Park — 26 mi
  A pocket of badlands in the Oglala National Grassland where sandstone caps balance on clay stems, ancient tracks cross the rock, and a trail leads on to a 10,000-year-old bison bone bed.

More markers nearby

• American Legion, Ferdinand Branstetter Post No. 1 — 2.9 mi
• Village of Harrison — 8.0 mi
• Texas Trail — 19 mi
• Rawhide Buttes — 21 mi