Sidney Nebraska

City · Cheyenne County · County seat · Population 6,410 (2020 census) · ZIP 69162 · Founded 1867 · Peak population 8,004 (1960)

About Sidney

Sidney is a city of 6,410 (2020) and the seat of Cheyenne County, in the Lodgepole Creek valley of the southern Panhandle at 4,085 feet, about 9 miles north of the Colorado line. US 30 (the Lincoln Highway) runs through town as Illinois Street beside the Union Pacific main line, US 385 (the Gold Rush Byway) turns north here toward Bridgeport, and I-80 serves the city at exits 55 (NE 19, west side) and 59 (US 385 and the Cabela's area). Sidney is on Mountain Time.

History

The Union Pacific's end of track reached the site in the fall of 1867, and the town was named for Sidney Dillon, a Union Pacific official who later became its president. That November the Army set up Sidney Barracks to guard the track layers; the post moved to its present site in 1869 and was formally renamed Fort Sidney in 1878. Walter Reed, later famous for his yellow fever research, served as post surgeon in 1883–84, and Gen. John L. DeWitt was born at the fort in 1880. The Army abandoned Fort Sidney in 1894.

After gold was found in the Black Hills, Sidney became the railhead for the Sidney–Black Hills Trail, which crossed the North Platte on Henry T. Clarke's 1876 toll bridge near today's Bridgeport and carried freight and passengers to Deadwood until the early 1880s, peaking in 1878–79. The boom brought saloons, gamblers and gunfights, and newspapers of the day called Sidney "the wickedest town in the West"; Boot Hill cemetery dates from 1868. The Sidney Telegraph began in 1873, and fire swept the business district in December 1877.

In 1942 the Army opened the Sioux Ordnance Depot northwest of town on 19,771 acres, with 801 earth-covered ammunition igloos; it brought thousands of workers and stayed open until 1967. Oil was found north of Sidney in 1949, and the population peaked at 8,004 in 1960. Cabela's, started by Dick Cabela in Chappell in 1961, moved to Sidney in 1968 and opened its flagship store here in 1991; the company was headquartered in Sidney until Bass Pro Shops bought it in 2017. In 2026 the University of Nebraska announced it would lease the former headquarters campus.

Things to see

the Fort Sidney Museum, 544 Jackson St., and the Post Commander's Home, 1153 6th Ave., in the Fort Sidney Historic District (National Register; open Memorial Day to Labor Day) · Boot Hill Cemetery, 640 Elm St., established 1868 · Camp Lookout, at Elm St. and 10th Ave., an 1867 building restored as a pictorial history museum · the 1913 Carnegie library, 740 Illinois St., now home to the Cheyenne County Chamber of Commerce, and the Sidney Historic Business District (both on the National Register) · Christ Episcopal Church (1880s; National Register), 10th Ave. and Linden St. · Deadwood Draw, about 3 mi northwest, the wagon staging area of the Black Hills trail (National Register) · the Pole Creek Pony Express station marker on US 30 east of town · the Cabela's flagship store, 115 Cabela Dr., with its RV park · Legion Park, 2301 Legion Park Rd., with ball fields, a fishing pond, trails and the city aquatic center (opened 2016) · the 18-hole Hillside Golf Course, 2616 Hillside Dr. · the Cheyenne County Visitors Center, 659 Glover Rd. · events: Gold Rush Days in June, the Cheyenne County Fair and Rodeo in July and Oktoberfest in early October