Grand Island

Grand Island grew slowly at first as a railroad town. A. T. Andreas's 1882 history has the railroad eating house built in the fall of 1866, the post office opened that November under D. Schuller, and Koenig and Wiebe's O.K. Store moved in from a mile south early in 1867. Then settlers arrived by the thousands. The land office opened December 6, 1869, the Platte Valley Independent on July 1, 1870, and the State Central Bank in 1871. With about a thousand people, half of them German, the town became a city in spring 1873.

What the plaque says

Grand Island You are near the Platte River's famous Grand Island. It is approximately forty miles in length and two miles at its widest. Providing abundant wood and water, it often served as a campsite for Pawnee Indians. Journalists for the expeditions of Astor (1813) and Stephen Long (1819) both noted the island. In 1843 John C. Fremont recommended that a fort be constructed near the head of the island. Fort Childs, later named Fort Kearny, was established in 1848 as the first military outpost on the Platte River portion of the Oregon and California trails. The Mormon Trail ran adjacent to the island along the north bank of the river. In 1857 a town company composed mainly of Germans settled the area north of the island. This first Grand Island failed to develop when the company became bankrupt. Present Grand Island was not platted until 1866, when the Union Pacific Railroad reached Hall County. The town grew rapidly and became the county seat. In 1869 a U.S. General Land Office was established to record land filings for the region north of the Platte. Grand Island was incorporated in 1872, and it has become a major industrial and agricultural city in the central Platte Valley. Hall County Historical Society Department of Roads Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer — 5.8 mi
  Edward Durell Stone's island pavilion in Grand Island and an 1890s railroad town of moved buildings, among them the cottage where Henry Fonda was born in 1905.

More markers nearby

• Grand Island — 1.6 mi
• St. Joseph and Grand Island Railroad — 5.2 mi
• The Mormon Trail — 5.9 mi
• La Grande Isle — 6.4 mi