Historic Lodgepole Creek Valley

On August 7, 1919, the Army's first transcontinental motor convoy drove up this valley on the Lincoln Highway. The day before, sand west of Ogallala had held it to 22 miles in six hours, with trucks chained together on the hills. Here the log records good gravel roads: 86 miles to Kimball in a little over eleven hours, lunch from the Union Pacific and Commercial hotels at Sidney, and a tarpaulin set alight by a tossed cigarette and put out with other trucks' extinguishers. Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower rode along as an observer.

What the plaque says

Historic Lodgepole Creek Valley Here is the valley of Lodgepole Creek through which passed historic trails, telegraph lines, and railroads. The famed Pony Express followed the valley in 1860-61. "Nine Mile" Pony Express station was located just southeast of present Chappell; "Pole Creek- No. 2" station was a few miles west of here. Near Sidney, the Pony Express trail turned northwestward, passing Mud Springs station and Courthouse Rock enroute to the North Platte River. In 1861 the first transcontinental telegraph line was built through the valley. Stagecoaches of the Central Overland Route soon followed, carrying passengers and mail. Former Pony Express stations continued to serve the stage line, providing lodging and provisions for travelers. When the tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad reached here in 1867, wagon and stagecoach travel declined. Today modern highways retrace historic trails through the valley. Two miles east is Chappell, at first only a railroad siding. The townsite was surveyed in 1884 and a post office was established two years later. Chappell became the county seat of Deuel County in 1894. Deuel County Historical Society Department of Roads Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Julesburg — 13 mi
  The town that moved four times: a trading post, a stage stop burned in 1865, the wickedest end-of-track town on the Union Pacific, and finally Denver Junction renamed.
• Ash Hollow State Historical Park — 23 mi
  The emigrants' spring below Windlass Hill, six miles from the Blue Water Creek camp where Harney's soldiers killed eighty-six Lakota in 1855, and where their belongings came home in 2025.

More markers nearby

• B-24J Bomber Crash — steps away
• Fort Sedgwick — 9.6 mi
• Lodgepole and the Union Pacific Railroad — 9.6 mi
• Old Julesburg — 12 mi