Lone Tree

Lone Tree was founded in 1866 as Merrick County's seat while the Union Pacific laid track through the county, near the site of Elvira, a county seat planned in 1858 to lie under the tree itself. In 1875 a petition asked the county court for a new name. Supporters said Lone Tree made the place seem desolate and its people poor and uncivilized, and would keep settlers away; opponents called it a beautiful spot and a name dear to the pioneers. Central City became official on July 1, 1875.

What the plaque says

Lone Tree Lone Tree, a giant, solitary cottonwood, was a noted Platte River landmark as early as 1833. Standing on the north side of the river some three miles southwest of present Central City, the tree was visible at great distances. Several travelers estimated they could see it twenty miles away. The tree was especially prominent since timber was rare on the Nebraska prairies except in stream valleys, where it received protection from prairie fires. The Mormon Trail passed by Lone Tree, as did the Omaha-Fort Kearny stage route. The tree also gave its name to a stage station and a town, later renamed Central City. Ten to twelve feet in circum- ference, the tree's total height was about fifty feet; its lowest branches were about twenty feet above the ground. Passing travelers often camped beneath Lone Tree and carved their initials on its trunk. This probably hastened its end, for the tree was dead by 1863. A severe storm in 1865 brought it to the earth. In 1911 residents of Merrick County erected a stone in the shape of a tree trunk on the site once occupied by Lone Tree. Merrick County Centennial Committee Historical Land Mark Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer — 24 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.
• Genoa U.S. Indian School Museum — 28 mi
  The surviving trades building of a federal boarding school that ran from 1884 to 1934 on the Pawnee Nation's last Nebraska land, where at least 86 children died and the cemetery is still lost.

More markers nearby

• The Mormon Trail — steps away
• Heber Hord House — 1.3 mi
• Siloa Cemetery — 12 mi
• Village of Polk — 12 mi