Ogallala and the Platte Valley

This rest area's sculpture, Up/Over, is by Linda Howard, an Illinois-born maker of large outdoor works. A mostly privately funded project chose ten sculptors to put abstract art at Interstate 80 rest stops, and the legislature accepted the gifts 25 to 14; a 1975 Lincoln Evening Journal headline read No Indians, No Bison, No Covered Wagons. Howard assembled her piece here on July 1, 1976, phoning for replacements when parts were missing. On July 7, 2026, it was listed on the National Register with six other surviving I-80 sculptures.

What the plaque says

Ogallala and the Platte Valley This region holds much that is significant to the history of the West. At this point, I-80 follows the route of the Overland Trail, along the South Platte River. Leaving the South Platte near here, the trail continued up the North Platte Valley, today the route of U.S. Highway 26. Beginning in 1841, an estimated quarter of a million travelers crossed the plains over this great natural highway. Oregon and California were early goals, and the Platte Valley later became an important freighting and military route. The Pony Express used the Platte River Road, and when the first trans-continental railroad was completed in 1869, it too followed the valley. Nearby Ogallala was a wild and woolly cowtown from 1875 to 1885 when it was the northern terminus of the Texas Trail. Located on the Union Pacific Railroad, the town was a shipping point for great herds of Texas Longhorns, and the chief gateway to the newly opened ranges of the Northern Plains. Boot Hill, which still survives, was the final resting place for many who helped make Ogallala the Cowboy Capital of Nebraska. Nebraska Department of Roads Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake McConaughy and Kingsley Dam — 6.4 mi
  Nebraska's largest reservoir, 22 miles of North Platte water and white sand beaches behind a 1941 hydraulic-fill dam, built so farms far downstream could water their crops.

More markers nearby

• Ash Hollow: Gateway to the North Platte Valley — steps away
• Court House Rock, Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluffs — steps away
• Escape of the Northern Cheyenne — 1.1 mi
• Alkali Station — 4.4 mi