University of Nebraska at Kearney

Part of the campus went through the Kearney boom first. Samuel Clay Bassett traced four acres George W. Frank had bought in the 1870s at $2.40 an acre: sold to John J. Bartlett for $2,400 in January 1885, to H. D. Watson for $19,200 in 1888, then cut into forty-five lots that brought $29,200 by March 1889. Dr. J. L. Bennett paid $600 apiece for eight lots where the north wing later rose and sold his last two for $133. In 1913 the Kearney Daily Hub valued the city's gift to the school, Green Terrace Hall included, at $95,000.

What the plaque says

University of Nebraska at Kearney In 1903 the legislature appropriated $50,000 to establish a state normal school in central or western Nebraska. After 111 ballots, the State Board of Education chose Kearney as the site. The city donated twenty acres on the west edge of town for a campus, including one building, Green Terrace Hall, which was used mainly as a dormitory until razed in 1960. Construction of the administration building began in 1904. The first classes at Kearney State Normal School were held in the summer of 1905 with 96 students enrolled. In 1921 the school was renamed the Nebraska State Teachers College at Kearney and became a four-year college. The granting of liberal arts degrees was authorized in 1949, and a graduate program was established in 1956. The name was changed to Kearney State College in 1963. On July 1, 1991, the institution became part of the University of Nebraska, to be known as the University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK). Under its various names, UNK has played an important role in state development and continues to meet the educational, research, and service needs of Nebraska. University of Nebraska at Kearney Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Kearny State Historical Park — 6.0 mi
  The 1848 army post on the Platte, built on a strip of Pawnee land bought for $2,000 in goods, where emigrant wagons passed by the thousand and only the cottonwoods outlasted the fort.
• Rowe Sanctuary — 11 mi
  Audubon's sanctuary on the Platte near Gibbon, where the river's sandbars are kept bare so that sandhill cranes, more than a million in the valley each spring, can roost safely at night.

More markers nearby

• Historic Kearney — 1.1 mi
• The Great Plains — 2.5 mi
• Kearney Cotton Mill — 2.6 mi
• The Great Platte River Road — 3.4 mi