Historic Kearney

The famed 1733 Ranch took its name from a figure Kearney sold for generations: 1,733 miles to Boston and 1,733 to San Francisco. Its paper became the Hub in 1888, its editor recalled, after the greatly advertised claim to be hub of the continent. The straight-line distances are 1,486 and 1,263 miles. In Nebraska History in 2015 the University of Nebraska at Kearney historian John T. Bauer showed that the figure matches an old railroad route and was promoted from at least 1890; a Lincoln Highway sign later read 1733 miles to Frisco, 1733 miles to Boston.

What the plaque says

Historic Kearney In 1847 Brigham Young led the first migration over the Mormon Trail along the north bank of the Platte River, and in 1866 the Union Pacific Rail- road pushed its main line westward to this valley, bringing pioneer settlers. However, it was not until 1871 when the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad fixed the junction point of its line with the Union Pacific that a townsite was established here. The village of Kearney Junction was platted in the summer of 1871 and the junction of the two railroads was completed on September 18, 1872. In the fall of 1873, a bridge was completed across the Platte, connecting Kearney with the rapidly developing areas to the south. The City of Kearney was incorporated on December 3, 1873, and became the county seat of Buffalo County in 1874. Kearney developed rapidly as an industrial, agricultural, and cultural center. The railroads and the promise of industry offered by the new Kearney Canal, which was completed in 1886, brought many investors from the East, and by 1892 the population reached the 10,000 mark. This golden era launched the Kearney Cotton Mill, the famed 1733 Ranch, a splendid five-story opera house, and one of the state's first electric street railways. Kearney Centennial Commission Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Kearny State Historical Park — 5.2 mi
  The 1848 army post on the Platte, built on a strip of Pawnee land bought for $2,000 in goods, where emigrant wagons passed by the thousand and only the cottonwoods outlasted the fort.
• Rowe Sanctuary — 11 mi
  Audubon's sanctuary on the Platte near Gibbon, where the river's sandbars are kept bare so that sandhill cranes, more than a million in the valley each spring, can roost safely at night.

More markers nearby

• University of Nebraska at Kearney — 1.1 mi
• The Great Plains — 1.9 mi
• The Great Platte River Road — 2.4 mi
• Kearney Cotton Mill — 3.0 mi