Calendar Fritz House
The Lee and Gottliebe Fritz House, located at 132 North Oak in Gordon, Nebraska, is a historic house that was built in 1909. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 2003. The listing included a garage, older than the house itself, as another contributing building.
In its NRHP nomination, Read more »
Sheridan County Courthouse
Organized in 1885, Sheridan County named Rushville as its county seat in 1888. The county initially rented office space. In February 1904 the county board received a petition calling for a special tax to build a courthouse. Sheridan County officials built as costly and elaborate a courthouse as they could afford; it was completed in 1904. Read more »
Gourley’s Opera House
The one-story, false-front building listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was constructed by Dave Gourley in 1914. The opera house has a raked floor and retains the original opera chairs. A wooden floor found in the basement was purportedly used for dances and roller skating. The opera house was later used for motion pictures and was known as the Plains Theater. Read more »
Japanese Balloon Bombs
During World War II the Japanese built some nine thousand hydrogen-filled, paper balloons to carry small bombs to North America, hoping to set fires and inflict casualties. The first was launched November 3, 1944. The balloons rose to about 30,000 feet, where winds aloft transported them across the Pacific Ocean. On February 22, Read more »
Mari Sandoz
This is the country of Mari Sandoz–historian, novelist, teacher–who brought its history and its people to life in her many books, articles and stories. She was born in Sheridan County, Nebraska. Although she lived much of her life in the East, she is buried here in her own West. Mari Sandoz was first famed for Old Jules (1935), Read more »
Lone Willow
Not many settlers were in the area before 1884. Judge Tucker, U.S. Commissioner at Valentine, convinced the Rev. John Scamahorn of Sullivan, Indiana, that northwest Nebraska was “a paradise for agriculture development” while in attendance at the Louisville Exposition in 1882. The next year, Scamahorn and a few friends came out to look it over. Read more »
Rushville Historical Marker
The city of Rushville began as a settlement called Rush Valley, two miles north of its present location, in 1884. Buffalo grass pastures west of the Sandhills provided good grazing, but were too short for hay. The natural meadows along Rush Creek induced settlement in the area. Two stores a mile apart were established in the valley, Read more »
Camp Sheridan and Spotted Tail Agency
About ten miles north of Hay Springs are the sites of Spotted Tail Agency and Camp Sheridan. Named for Brule Sioux Chief Spotted Tail, the agency was built in 1874 to supply treaty payments, including food, clothing, weapons, and utensils, under the terms of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. The army established Camp Sheridan nearby to protect the agency. Read more »
Spade Ranch
Spade Ranch
Spade Ranch headquarters is a National Register of Historic Places site. In Ellsworth are the business offices (built c. 1890) and home (built 1902) of cattleman Bartlett Richards (1862-1911), a Vermont native. Richards, brothers DeForest and Jarvis, Will Comstock, Charles Jameson, and others began assembling the Spade about 1888. By 1900 its range comprised some 500,000 acres, Read more »
Along with World War I, came the “Potash Boom” in Southern Sheridan County. Antioch, and Lakeside became important industrial centers.
