Friedensau

The moved village needed a church in its new place. Lutherans who had lived around Friedensau founded St. Peter Lutheran Church in Deshler once the Rock Island came through, and they dedicated their first building on February 20, 1888. That church was remodeled and redecorated in 1960 and burned to the ground on March 25, 1961. The congregation dedicated a new and larger church on December 16, 1962, and kept its hundredth anniversary in 1988. Out on the Little Blue, the Friedensau cemetery beside Trinity Lutheran is the only part of the old village left.

What the plaque says

Friedensau Located three miles north of this corner, near the Little Blue River, the village of Friedensau ("Peaceful Meadows") was established in 1874 by Lutheran missionary pastor John J. Kern. The town was first settled by his former parishioners from Indiana and Illinois. In 1885, according to a book written by Kern, there were approximately seventy inhabitants in Friedensau and the surrounding area. There were two German Lutheran churches, a school, post office, water-powered grist mill, lumber yard, hotel, livery stable, blacksmith shop, and a number of other small businesses. As late as the fall of 1886, it was expected that the Rock Island Railroad would be extended from Fairbury through Hebron, Friedensau, Kiowa, Oak, and Nelson. However, due to the influence of area landowner John G. Deshler, the railroad was routed east through his property. After the railroad reached Deshler in 1887, the buildings in Friedensau were moved over the fenceless prairie and relocated in Deshler. Only the Trinity Lutheran Church and its cemetery remain in the Friedensau area today. Harold and Lois Struve Foundation Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pawnee Indian Museum State Historic Site — 19 mi
  A Kitkahahki Pawnee village of the late 1700s above the Republican, where a museum shelters a lodge the women built and a family bundle carried out of Massacre Canyon and given back to this place.

More markers nearby

• Thayer County — 5.4 mi
• The Hebron CCC and POW Camps — 5.8 mi
• The Forty-Niner Trail — 10 mi
• Original Townsite of Oak — 11 mi