Crawford 1891 School Bell

A $25,000 school was a large bet for a town the 1890 census counted at 571 people. The plaque's bell date may be off: a record of the original school's photograph in the state's Nebraska Memories collection says the bell went into the tower in 1907, the year Crawford became a city, sixteen years after the plaque's 1891. The same record says the building came down in 1956 to make way for a new elementary school. That school stands behind this monument at Fifth and Coates Streets, and the bell sits on its lawn.

What the plaque says

Crawford 1891 School Bell Crawford's first high school building was erected with locally fired brick in 1890 at an approximate cost of $25,000. This bell was installed in the belfry the following year. During the structure's demolition in 1956, citizens stealthily "requisitioned" the bell, fearing its loss. Brick salvaged from the school was used by the Lions Club in constructing this monument in 1979. The bell was placed here as a symbol of the town's commitment to education. Crawford Lions Club

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Robinson State Park — 3.1 mi
  The army post beside the Red Cloud Agency where Crazy Horse was bayoneted in 1877 and Morning Star's Northern Cheyenne broke out into the January cold of 1879.
• Toadstool Geologic Park — 15 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.
• Agate Fossil Beds National Monument — 24 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.

More markers nearby

• Crawford — 0.3 mi
• The Death of Baptiste Garnier — 0.5 mi
• Red Cloud Agency — 1.6 mi
• German P.O.W. Camp — 1.8 mi