Neligh Nebraska

City · Antelope County · County seat · Population 1,536 (2020 census) · ZIP 68756 · Founded 1873 · Peak population 1,893 (1980)

About Neligh

Neligh is a city of 1,536 people (2020) and the seat of Antelope County, at about 1,755 feet on the north bank of the Elkhorn River. US 275 runs east–west through town and meets NE 14, which runs south to Elgin and north to US 20 near Brunswick. The Cowboy Trail follows the old railroad grade through town. Neligh has the county courthouse, Antelope Memorial Hospital (a 23-bed critical access hospital, open 24/7), Neligh-Oakdale Schools, a public library, a 9-hole golf course, the county fairgrounds on the east edge of town and a city campground at Riverside Park. Neligh is on Central Time.

History

John D. Neligh bought 520 acres from the Omaha & Northwestern Railroad in 1872 for the water power of the Elkhorn, and in 1873 he and partners William B. Lambert and John B. Thomson laid out the town; J. B. Thomson built the first house that March. Neligh began his flour mill in 1873, and Lambert and William Gallaway finished it in 1874 with bricks made in the county, the first made there. Oakdale had won the county seat in 1872, but Neligh took it after a bitter contest in 1883, and the records moved on January 1, 1884. The Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley (later the Chicago & North Western) arrived in 1880 along with a federal land office, and Gates College taught here from 1881 into the 1890s. On May 23, 1877, during the Ponca tribe's forced removal to Indian Territory, the year-old White Buffalo Girl died near Neligh; townspeople buried her in Laurel Hill Cemetery, and her father, Black Elk, asked them to care for the grave, which they have kept since. The mill went to rollers in 1886, stopped grinding flour in the 1950s, and was bought by the state in 1969. Neligh peaked at 1,893 people in 1980. The railroad was abandoned in 1992 and became the Cowboy Trail.

Things to see

the Neligh Mill State Historic Site, N St. and Wylie Dr.: the only 19th-century Nebraska flour mill that still has its original 1880s milling equipment; free · White Buffalo Girl's grave and the Ponca Trail of Tears marker (marker No. 138) at Laurel Hill Cemetery · the Antelope County Historical Society museum, 410 L St., with a one-room school and the 1880s St. Peter's Episcopal Church (National Register) · the 1894–95 Antelope County Courthouse, 501 Main St. (National Register) · the Downtown Neligh Historic District and the 1911 Carnegie library, 510 M St. (both National Register) · the TK-Starlite Drive-In, 1000 US 275, showing movies since 1952 · Riverside Park on the Elkhorn: campground, swinging bridge and the county fair grandstand · the Cowboy Trail through town · Red Wing WMA, about 5 miles west · Old Mill Days during the July 4 weekend