Nebraska Centre-Boyd Ranche

Boyd's governorship became a fight over whether he was a citizen. Born in County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1834, he grew up in Ohio. After John M. Thayer challenged his eligibility he took office on January 15, 1891, but the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled him ineligible and Thayer resumed the office on May 5. On February 1, 1892, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Boyd v. Nebraska ex rel. Thayer that his father's 1849 declaration of intention and Nebraska's admission as a state had made him a citizen. Boyd returned on February 8.

What the plaque says

Nebraska Centre- Boyd Ranche James E. Boyd settled near here in 1858 and by 1860 operated a trail ranche supplying travelers on the Platte Valley Overland Route (Mormon Trail). The ranche included 200 acres of corn and barley. Nebraska Centre Post Office was here until it was discontinued in 1868. The Union Pacific Railroad, reaching here in 1866, ended the need for ranches. Soon after, Boyd moved to Omaha, was elected mayor, and in 1891 became governor of Nebraska.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rowe Sanctuary — 5.2 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 — 10.0 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

• Gibbon — 1.3 mi
• 1871 Gibbon 1971 — 2.9 mi
• 1872 Lowell 1972 — 6.7 mi
• Joseph E. Johnson and The Huntsman's Echo — 7.5 mi