St. Patrick's Cemetery

St. Patrick's parish was established in 1881, the year after Ned Murphy died, as the Missouri Pacific built its Atchison to Omaha main line through here in 1881 and 1882. August F. Wendt, the German-born owner of the land, surveyed and named the town in 1883, probably for one of three ranchers named Manley; it had first been called Summit for its view. Lightning destroyed the first church, a brick one served until 1978, and the present church, built for $350,000, was ready for the parish centennial in 1981, the year this marker was ordered.

What the plaque says

St. Patrick's Cemetery The establishment of St. Patrick's Cemetery is typical of that for many of Nebraska's early cemeteries. It began with the death of Edward Ned Murphy, son of Edward E. and Ann Crowley Murphy. He was born January 20, 1847 near Toronto, Canada and died February 7, 1880 at the nearby Murphy family farm before the Parish Church and Cemetery were established. A good friend, Fredrick Stohlmann, a Lutheran by faith, donated an acre to St. Patrick's Parish. James Murphy, brother of Edward bought an adjoining acre on which Edward Ned Murphy was buried as the first parishioner to be buried here. Descendants of Edward Ned Murphy

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum — 10 mi
  Two hangar-sized halls beside I-80 near Ashland holding the bombers and reconnaissance planes of the command that ran America's nuclear force from Offutt, south of Omaha, from 1948 to 1992.
• The Durham Museum (Omaha Union Station) — 23 mi
  Omaha's 1931 Union Station, Gilbert Stanley Underwood's Art Deco depot for the Union Pacific, closed to trains in 1971 and kept as a city museum with its waiting room intact.
• Joslyn Art Museum — 23 mi
  Omaha's free art museum, a 1931 Art Deco memorial with two modern pavilions, and the keeper of Karl Bodmer's watercolors from the upper Missouri in 1833 and 1834.
• Arbor Lodge State Historical Park — 23 mi
  J. Sterling Morton's estate in Nebraska City, a four-room house of 1855 grown to 52 rooms among the trees he planted, home of the man who proposed Arbor Day in 1872.

More markers nearby

• Gretna Fish Hatchery — 7.1 mi
• Springfield Community Hall — 8.6 mi
• Prehistoric Burial Site — 10 mi
• Bess Streeter Aldrich: 1881-1954 — 11 mi