Headed East toward Omaha (2)

…continuing with our road trip and exploration of Nebraska from this past July.  After lunch at Frankie’s Bar and Grill in Bridgeport, we looked around town and then ventured east in Morrill County.

One discovery was the old Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad combination passenger and freight depot in Bridgeport.  This brick and stucco depot is used as a line office by the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroad.  With that new roof, it should survive for many more years.  I was unable to discover when this structure was built.

Apparently, back when steam locomotives ruled the rails, Bridgeport must have been a railroad and locomotive maintenance center.  The evidence seems clear.  This abandoned warren through truss turntable/bridge sits over the now filled pit around which it rotated delivering locomotives to different bays in a long gone roundhouse.  The bridge was built by the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company.

Our next stop was a bit off of US Hwy 26.  We headed a few miles south down NE Hwy 88 to get a look at another major landmark for pioneers along their route west.  The larger bluff is called the Courthouse Rock and the smaller one the Jail.  Hundreds of westward-bound emigrants mentioned these landmarks in their travel logs or journals.  These remnants of an ancient plateau, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, rise about 400 feet above the North Platte Valley.

As I was researching the history of Merrill County I ran across an article published in “The Bee” in Omaha from July 29, 1909.  On July 28^th, “An orderly mob was organized here (Bridgeport) last night and armed with a rope, sought out a young negro who had become altogether too fresh and informed him that he could choose between leaving town and being strung up to a telegraph pole.  He left town.”  

How does anyone get strung up for being ‘too fresh’?  The 'old days' aren’t as idyllic or romantic as sometimes portrayed…

I included this photo because I was somewhat enamored with the grassland and bright contrasting colors…

On the return drive back down NE Hwy. 88 Laurie spotted this handsome mule deer hanging out in a grove of trees.  This was one of the very few glimpses of wildlife we saw during our trip. 

Mule deer are indigenous to western North America from the Great Plains into the Rocky Mountains and along the west coast of the continent.  They are larger than white tail deer that populate much of North America, with trophy size bucks reaching over 450 lbs.  Females average 150 lbs. but they can weigh as much as 200 lbs.  Mule deer are named for their large ‘mule like’ ears.

As we passed through the little village of Broadwater, I could see the North Platte River to my right and when I saw that NE Hwy. 92 crossed the river after a few blocks, I decided to check it out.  Sorry about the power lines in the second photo, but this is the more typical ‘look’ of both the North Platte and Platte Rivers.  Historically, at various locations the river bed was a mile wide…

The North Platte River is a tributary of the Platte River.  It is 716 miles long and stretches upriver from its juncture with the Platte River into the States of Colorado and Wyoming.  The North Platte was a key element in the many westward routes used in the European settlement of what is now the USA.  It provided both water and grass, two essentials for the traveler’s animals.

Our next stop was in Oshkosh Nebraska.   I was a little surprised that the Oshkosh Water Tower is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Still, having been built in 1920, it is over 100 years old.  This water tower was used until the winter of 2017 – 2018 and it was listed on the National Register in 2019.  It is owned by the Oshkosh Water Tower nonprofit, which is preserving it.

FYI, the first permanent settlers in the vicinity were men from the Oshkosh Land and Cattle Company, some of whom were from Oshkosh Wisconsin.

Oshkosh Nebraska is the county seat for Garden County Nebraska.  The Garden County Courthouse at F and Main Streets was built in the Classical Revival style and it was completed in 1922.  With a population of about 770 residents, Oshkosh has to be one of the smallest county seats in the state.  Of course, the county’s total population is only about 1,900 in a county whose area covers 1,731 square miles.  That’s 1.1 persons per square mile!

Oshkosh itself has never had more than 1,124 residents.  The town was established in 1889 but wasn’t platted until 1905.  In 1908, the railroad came to town and Oshkosh was made the county seat in 1909. 

Garden County has lost population since the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.  The land that was homesteaded for family farms often turned out to be too small for subsistence farming given the arid conditions in the region.  Worse yet, settlers from the east didn’t know how to work the land on the prairies…and tons of topsoil were lost when droughts occurred.   

Yes…Like so many small towns in the state, Oshkosh Nebraska does have a mural.  It depicts a Sandhill Crane and that crane is representative of the huge tourist attraction that it the annual Sandhill Crane Season.  These cranes flock to Garden County and other spots along the North Platte and Platte Rivers.  They number upward of 600,000 and they show up starting in late February and hang around until early April.  They use the rivers sand bars and islands as places of refuge at night and during the day they feed on the leftover grain remaining on the ground in the vast croplands in the area.  To learn more, go to https://visitnebraska.com/sandhill-crane-migration.

The common name of these birds…sandhill cranes…actually refers to habitat like that along the Platte River valley on the edge of Nebraska’s sand hills.  In height these birds range from 2 feet 7 inches to 4 feet 6 inches.  Females weigh an average of 8.9 pounds and the males are about 10 pounds.  These cranes frequently make a loud call that sounds like a rolled “r” in the throat and they can be heard from a long distance.  When Laurie and I lived in Chicago, we knew that spring was coming when we heard the sandhill cranes flying over our house… The sound always made us happy!

That’s all for now.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave