Pioneer Park

Two other objects share the block with the state marker. At First and Cleburn streets stands a bell for the Grand Island Public School, cast by VanDuzen & Tift's Buckeye Bell Foundry of Cincinnati and dated 1879. HMdb records its lettering: Erected 1878, the 1879 school board and building committee, and the motto "I proclaim unceasing warfare against ignorance, fanaticism and intolerance." Nearby, a bronze the Daughters of the American Revolution set in March 1953 marks the site of Hall County's first courthouse and gives its building date as 1875, two years after the state marker's 1873.

What the plaque says

Pioneer Park Pioneer Park, site of the first Hall County Courthouse, honors the courageous settlers who peacefully inhabited this area in 1857 when only Pawnee lived here. In 1866 the Union Pacific reached Grand Island and in 1868 the railroad donated Block 19 for the construction of county buildings. Three years later the county commissioners requested that General Grenville M. Dodge, agent and trustee of the railroad, exchange the property for block 84 where this park is located. Special elections were held in 1872 wherein bonds totalling $20,000 were issued for construction. A two story courthouse with a clock tower was completed June 28, 1873 at a cost of $16,500. In 1901 a special election voted bonds for a new courthouse and other county buildings. When the new structure was completed in 1905, the original courthouse was razed. Four elections were held from 1902 to 1905 to authorize the sale of this block, but dedicated work by the Women's Park Association maintained this site as a memorial to Hall County pioneers. In 1964 action was brought to construct a new postoffice on this land and a 1970 election was held to locate a new library here, but the park was preserved on both occasions. Hall County Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer — 3.2 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.

More markers nearby

• The Lincoln Memorial Highway — steps away
• Old Dodge School - World War II POW Branch Camp — steps away
• Hall County Courthouse — 0.3 mi
• The Seedling Mile — 1.3 mi