The Great Platte River Road

The name's origin depends on who tells it. The 1974 National Register nomination records travelers' rival stories, a trader who sold whisky to Indians here or Benjamin O'Fallon murdered here by Indians, while other accounts name the Indian agent Benjamin O'Fallon. Frank Young said plainsmen dreaded the place as sailors dread Cape Hatteras. The bluffs run about 20 miles along the river, and building Interstate 80 cut away much of them. The ruts here were listed on the National Register on July 24, 1974, and iron hoops shaped like wagon wheels mark them.

What the plaque says

The Great Platte River Road This is the Platte River Valley, America's great road west. It provided a natural pathway for westward expansion across the continent during the nineteenth century. Here passed the Oregon Trail, following the South Platte River along much the same route as the highway over which you now travel. Beginning in 1841, nearly 250,000 travelers crossed the plains to Oregon and California over this important overland route. Here at O'Fallon's Bluffs, the wagon trains faced one of the most difficult and dangerous spots on the trail. The Platte River cut directly against the bluff, making it necessary to travel the narrow roadway over O'Fallon's Bluffs. Deep sand caught the wagon wheels, and Indian attacks were always a danger. A few feet southeast of this point, ruts made by thousands of wagon wheels still remain. Although first traveled primarily by immigrants, the trail was later used by the Pony Express and became an important freight and military route. With the com- pletion of the trans-continental railroad across Nebraska in 1867, travel on the trail declined. Although the danger and hardships faced by early travelers no longer exist, the Great Platte Valley route remains an important modern thoroughfare across Nebraska and across the nation. Department of Roads Historical Land Mark Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Golden Spike Tower and Bailey Yard — 14 mi
  A tower with seventh- and eighth-floor decks over Union Pacific's Bailey Yard in North Platte, the world's largest railroad classification yard, in a town the railroad laid out and fed troops from.
• Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park — 16 mi
  Scout's Rest, the North Platte ranch house and barn of William F. Cody, in the town where his Old Glory Blowout of July 4, 1882 became the first act of the Wild West.

More markers nearby

• Crossing the Overland Trail — steps away
• The Great Platte River Road — 0.4 mi
• Scout's Rest — 16 mi
• Fort McPherson — 16 mi