1,733 Miles from Where? Kearney, Nebraska’s 1733 Identity
By David L. Bristow, Editor
Kearney has long promoted itself as the “Midway City” located halfway between the coasts, exactly 1,733 miles from both Boston and San ...
Transportation
What We Found
Time for Me to Fly in My REO Speed Wagon
In 1921, an REO Speed Wagon truck could take you from Omaha to Denver in 20 hours over bumpy dirt roads. In 1980, REO Speedwagon the band could take a song to the top of ...
Replacing Old Dobbin With a Delivery Truck
The advent of cars radically changed personal and professional transportation for Nebraskans. The 1911 Nebraska State Journal cheered this revolution with an article ...
Nebraska’s Changing Auto Culture, 1900-1930
As automobile ownership and travel became more widespread after 1900 (and particularly after the dedication of the Lincoln Highway in October of 1913), the rural and ...
The Old Filling Station
By David L. Bristow, Editor
When we think about landmark buildings, gas stations probably aren’t the first places that come to mind. But they’ve been part ...
When buses were “the car of the future”
Not everyone was happy about “motor buses” when they first appeared in the early 1900s. But by 1925 the Nebraska State Journal said that attempts by railroads or ...
Why are the curbs so high?
This 1902 Kearney photo shows a growing city that is no longer a frontier town. Some of the old false-front wooden buildings remain, but we also see a substantial ...
Why Kearney, Nebraska, will become a second Minneapolis (1889)
Kearney was booming in 1889 when city boosters commissioned a promotional book entitled The City of Kearney, Nebraska. A copy of this boastful, lavishly illustrated book ...
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