Imperial Nebraska

City · Chase County · County seat · Population 2,068 (2020 census) · ZIP 69033 · Founded 1885 · Peak population 2,071 (2010)

About Imperial

Imperial is a city of 2,068 (2020) and the seat of Chase County, on the high plains about 3,280 feet above sea level, where US 6 and NE 61 meet. It has the county hospital, the Chase County Schools, the Lied Imperial Public Library, a municipal airport and the end of the railroad branch from Culbertson. Like the rest of the county, it is on Mountain Time.

History

Imperial grew up on land homesteaded by Thomas Mercier and M. J. Goodrich, who offered a free lot to anyone who would build. Mercier became postmaster on December 14, 1885. He was a Canadian, and the name is said to come either from a place in Canada or from the British imperial government. Most of the first buildings were up by the summer of 1886, with materials hauled by wagon from the railroad at Benkelman. The governor's proclamation of April 12, 1886, which organized the county, named Imperial the county seat, and the town kept it in a June 24, 1886, election against Hamilton (now Champion) and Eldridge; the courthouse's National Register nomination says Imperial won three elections in all.

The Burlington graded a branch from Culbertson to Imperial in 1888, but trains did not arrive until August 15, 1892. The Lincoln Land Company, the railroad's town-site company, gave lots in its Railroad Addition to owners who moved their buildings there, and nearly the whole town moved south to form today's business district. The line was never extended west; the Nebraska, Kansas & Colorado Railway now runs it under lease from BNSF. The Lincoln Land Company also gave the county its first courthouse in 1889. It burned in February 1910, in a fire set to hide an embezzlement, and the present courthouse, designed by A. T. Simmons of Bloomington, Illinois, and built by R. A. Winters and J. T. Short of Atwood, Kansas, was occupied on January 24, 1912.

Imperial passed 1,000 people by 1940 and reached its largest census count, 2,071, in 2010. Warren Prall Watters, later founding archbishop of the Free Church of Antioch, was born here in 1890, and Dan Hughes, state senator for District 44 from 2015 to 2023, was born here in 1956.

Things to see

The Chase County Courthouse, 921 Broadway, a dark brick Jacobethan courthouse of 1911–12 on the National Register, with the Chase County War Memorial on its east lawn · the Balcony House, 1006 Court St., part of Imperial's 1890s school, moved in the early 1920s to serve as a hotel and tourist camp for motorists (National Register 2000) · Pinkie's Corner, US 6 at 323rd Ave. (National Register) · the Texas Trail Stone Corral, NE 61 north of town (National Register; view from the road) · the Imperial Theatre, with weekend movies · the Imperial Swimming Pool, 505 E. 9th St., heated, Memorial Day to mid-August · Imperial Country Club, 9 holes, W. 7th St., next to Campbell Park with its disc golf course and skate park · Wanamaker WMA, 160 acres about 2 mi northwest · the Chase County Fair & Expo, August 9–15, 2026, 560 Park St. · the Lied Imperial Public Library, 703 Broadway, with local newspaper and genealogy files