Ward Bond's Boyhood Home

From Benkelman the Bonds moved to Denver in 1919, where Ward graduated from East High School and went on to the Colorado School of Mines and then the University of Southern California. At six feet two he started on the line of USC's first national championship team, in 1928. John Ford hired the team for his football picture Salute in 1929, and Bond made his screen debut in it beside another USC player, John Wayne. He went on to make 25 films with Ford, The Searchers among them, and Wayne gave the eulogy at his funeral in 1960.

What the plaque says

Ward Bond's Boyhood Home Actor Ward Edwin Bond was born in this house on April 9, 1903, the son of John W. and Mabel L. Bond. The family lived here until leaving Benkelman in 1919. Ward Bond played supporting roles in more than 250 motion pictures and starred as Major Seth Adams, the wagon master in the NBC tele- vision series, Wagon Train, which began in 1957. Bond died of a heart attack in Dallas, Texas, on November 5, 1960 at age fifty-seven. Hansen Charitable Foundation Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Arikaree Breaks — 14 mi
  A strip of loess canyons two or three miles wide cut across the northwest corner of Kansas, followed by a signed gravel tour north of St. Francis into Nebraska and back.

More markers nearby

• General Custer in Nebraska — 0.8 mi
• Nature's Gift: The Highway 34 Springs — 1.8 mi
• Prisoners of War in Dundy County — 9.4 mi
• Texas Trail Canyon — 17 mi