The Great Platte River Road

The station under the bluffs went by several names: Half-way House, O'Fallon's Bluff Station and Elk Horn Station, all one place, says the 1974 National Register nomination. Richard Burton's stage log of 1860 put Half-way House, a store and ranch, 120 miles from Fort Kearny and 400 from St. Joseph. It served as a Pony Express station, about two miles south and four west of Sutherland. In 1864 General Robert B. Mitchell had it fortified and guarded by a cavalry company. A 1966 dig at a ditch below the bluff found only scattered animal bone.

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 a quarter of a million travelers crossed the plains to Oregon and California over this important overland route. South and west of here, near O'Fallon's Bluffs, the wagon trains faced one of the most difficult and dangerous spots encountered since leaving the Missouri River. Here it was necessary to pass through the narrow, hazardous roadway between the Bluffs and the Platte. Ruts made by the 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 completion of the trans-continental railroad across Nebraska in 1867, travel on the trail declined. Although the dangers 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 — 15 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

• The Great Platte River Road — 0.4 mi
• Crossing the Overland Trail — 0.4 mi
• Scout's Rest — 15 mi
• Fort McPherson — 16 mi