Day 13 -- Ogallala to Ft. Kearney -- Sunday June 9, 2013

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We left Ogallala and drove a bit off the beaten track this morning.  Stop D8 in the Nebraska driving guide is supposedly where the Mormon immigrant wagon train crossed over the hill. The wagons travel pretty directly up and down the on hills because they are prone to tip over if they lean too much.  In this area there are several swales that can be identified marking areas where the wagons traveled over the top of the hill and down into the next valley.  The signage here suggests that even though these trails were supposed to have been made by a Mormon wagon train, it is probable that the Mormons instead used a slightly different route. It is not clear why there is this discrepancy in the information other than differences in personal recollection, local legend, and contemporary documentation. With the exception of some fence lines and the occasional power line this area seems to be little changed from what it would have been like for the travelers in 1850.

As we have follow the trail route along the Platte River there are a number of markers where wagon trails are visible very near to the modern highway.  One of the most interesting is near Sutherland, Nebraska, where the remnants of the trail are marked by round hoops of iron which represent the tires of the wagons that traveled in this area.  As you look along the swales marked by the tires you can look south to current farm lands and, in the distance, some silos. Silos are ever present features in the cornfields of Nebraska - almost as common as the cornfields themselves.  Looking to the north one sees the freeway (Interstate 80) with 18 wheeled “wagons” going a bit faster than a team of 8 oxen.

From here we follow US Highway 30, which in this area closely follows US Interstate 80, to the little town of Gothenburg. In the town park in this beautiful little town is a relocated Pony Express station.  Although the trail guide expresses some doubt that this was an actual pony express station, the man who was sitting in the station assured us that as far as he is concerned this is a genuine Pony Express station.  It might have been used at some times for other purposes, but at one point in it life time is WAS used by the Pony Express.

There was a man in the station filled us in on some of the history of the town: It was originally on the railroad, but there is no longer passenger service to the area.  There are several small or medium size manufacturing businesses there, but the main occupation of the people in the area is agriculture and supporting activities. He told us that there is a crew of 9 volunteers that keep the station open for visitors 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, during the summer months.  That is a lot of hours for those men to spend in a room that is no more than 300 square feet, and most of that is taken up by the artifacts inside. He was more than happy to spend a few minutes with us especially when we asked about the town itself.

The town has pot hole-free streets, lined by well-maintained homes and tree-shaded sidewalks - a sort of classic Middle America small town, but in much better shape than some. It is a place where you can imagine the barefoot boys going down to the river with fishing poles in hand as their little sisters sell lemonade from fruit crate stands on the street corners.   While many of the towns we have passed through look like something that might have been documented by Dorothea Lange or Gordon Parks, Gothenberg looks more like a Saturday Evening Post cover.

We left Gothenberg and drove down US 30 towards the little town of Overton, not even shown on the AAA map of the Central States. A few miles west of Overton is stop D3 in the Nebraska NTP driving guide – the Plum Creek Massacre.  There was supposed to be a marker and the grave sites of the victims of an attack on a Denver-bound wagon train during which Indians killed 13 men and captured a woman and a small boy.  The army responded to the site of the attack and reburied the dead, but there was no sign of the grave in the area. Nancy Morton, the captured woman, told the story in a book published in 1912 recounts the story of her capture by the Cheyenne Indians.  She escaped and returned home and died in 1912.

We continued along IS80 and saw, but did not stop to inspect, the Great Platte River Road Archway that stretches over the highway. Highway construction in the area seemed to have closed all of the off ramps from the freeway – even after doubling back and trying to approach from the east we could not figure out how to get there from the freeway.  Since it was getting late in the afternoon we decided to press on to Fort Kearney.Day 13 -- Ogallala to Ft. Kearney --

We got to Fort Kearny, adjacent to the Town of Kearney (pop. 315) just in time to be too late to enter the grounds.  Luckily there was a camping area immediately next to the Historical Park, so we stayed there for the night.