1872 Lowell 1972

The county history in Who's Who in Nebraska (1940) gives the numbers behind Lowell's rise and fall. In 1872 the county-seat vote went 23 for Lowell and 5 for Kearney City, the old seat at Dobytown. On November 11, 1876, nearly four-fifths of the voters chose to relocate the seat, and the county records went to Minden on April 29, 1878. Joel Hull, who helped plat and incorporate Minden, worked to bring the seat there. When the railroad reached Minden, Lowell's business declined as rapidly as it had risen.

What the plaque says

1872 Lowell 1972 The Boom Town played an important role in the West, and few Nebraska towns had such a boom history as Lowell. It was selected as a townsite by the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad in 1871, and its first businesses were soon established. Lowell, first incorporated town in Kearney County, was chosen county seat at the reorganization election of June 17, 1872. The B&M RR arrived on July 8, and for a short time it was end-of-track, becoming a major shipping point for central Nebraska. Also in July, it was selected as the site for the U.S. Land Office for the Republican Valley, and its streets were crowded with homesteaders. It was a temporary shipping point for herds of cattle trailed north from Texas. The courthouse and land office stood near here. Lowell's decline began as early as 1872, when the railroad built on to Kearney, making it the regional trading center, and a wagon bridge built across the Platte at Kearney in 1874 continued the drop in business. The removal of the land office in 1874 added to the decline of Lowell. When the county seat was removed in 1878, a quiet village replaced the boom town. The school closed in 1963. Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rowe Sanctuary — 2.6 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.
• Fort Kearny State Historical Park — 8.4 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.

More markers nearby

• 1871 Gibbon 1971 — 4.1 mi
• The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad — 5.5 mi
• Susan O. Hail Grave — 6.5 mi
• Nebraska Centre-Boyd Ranche — 6.7 mi