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Nebraska City

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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A city and the county-seat of Otoe county, Nebraska, U.S.A., situated on the high W. bank of the Missouri river, about 40 m. below Omaha. Pop. (1880) 4183; (1890) 11,494; (Igloo) 7380, of whom 882 were foreign-born. It served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Missouri Pacific railway systems. A railway and wagon bridge spans the Missouri. The city is the seat of the state Institute for the Blind (1875), and has three public parks and a public library. The city is a distributing centre for a beautiful farming region, the trade in grain being especially large. In 1900 Nebraska City ranked third among the manufacturing cities of the state, the manufactures including canned fruits and vegetables, packed pork, flour, oatmeal, hominy, grits, meal, starch, cider-vinegar, agricultural implements, windmills, paving bricks, concrete, sewer pipe, beer, over-ails and shirts. It is one of the oldest settlements of the state. The first "old Fort Kearney" was established on the site of Nebraska City in 1847, but was abandoned in 1848, and the fort was re-established farther W. on the Platte river (see Kearney). Otoe county was organized in 1855, and the original Nebraska City was incorporated and made the county-seat in the same year. This city, together with Kearney City, incorporated in 1855 - adjacent to the first "old" Fort Kearney - and South Nebraska City, were consolidated by the legislature into the present Nebraska City in 1858. (Twelve other city "additions" and so-called "towns," all within or closely adjacent to the present city, were in existence in 1857.) Nebraska City was for some years the largest city of the state. In 1858 it became the headquarters of a great freighting-firm that distributed supplies for the United States government among the army posts between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains; in seven months in 1859 this one firm employed 602 men, used 517 wagons, 5682 oxen, and 75 mules, and shipped 2,782,258 lb. of freight. Nebraska City was the initial point of several roads, parts at one time or another of the "Oregon," "Old California," and "Great Salt Lake" trails. (See Nebraska (State): History. ) Nebraska City became a city of the second class in 1871 and a city of the first class in 1901.