Historical Marker · No. 537
Village of Shelby
Polk County · Nebraska
Erected by The Brigham Family; Shelby Chamber of Commerce; Shelby Betterment Corp.; Village of Shelby; and Nebraska State Historical Society, 2017
Andreas's 1882 history dates the town's start to August 1879, when J. T. Dunning built the first grain elevator at the Arcade station; the next month H. C. and Frank Dunning opened the first store. John T. Dunning built the first drug store in April 1880, and John Stalnecker the first hotel. When the post office took the name Shelby in the winter of 1880-81, J. T. Dunning became its first postmaster. Agent B. E. Sturdevant's figures for 1881 showed 276 cars shipped, 127 of them corn and 85 wheat, from a town of about two hundred.
What the plaque says
The Village of Shelby Incorporated October 27, 1885 In 1873 Horace A.Cowles, Civil War veteran, set up the Cyclone post office in his home one mile east and one mile south of present-day Shelby. A second post office, Arcade, was established one mile east of town in 1879; a year later it moved to the present location to be near the Omaha & Republican Valley Railroad, later the Union Pacific. Shelby was named after a railroad official. Landowners Gilbert Van Vorce and Peter Matter gave the railroad half interest in their property to develop a trade center. Original streets retain their names: Walnut, Elm, Chestnut, Pine, Cherry, and Oak. By the 1880s, the town had a drugstore, hardware store, hotel, boot and shoe shop, livery stable, bank, brick factory, and physician. The Shelby Sun newspaper was founded in 1889. Before 1900, Shelby had its own electric light plant. Telephone service arrived in 1903 and a water system in 1911. John Dunning and his father built radio station KGBY in 1926. Shelby was home to well-known Nebraska artist Terence Duren, 1904-1968. The Brigham Family Shelby Chamber of Commerce Shelby Betterment Corp. Village of Shelby Nebraska State Historical Society, 2017
Where it stands
41.19359, -97.42618 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Genoa U.S. Indian School Museum — 23 miThe surviving trades building of a federal boarding school that ran from 1884 to 1934 on the Pawnee Nation's last Nebraska land, where at least 86 children died and the cemetery is still lost.