Barneston Nebraska - Nebraska Directory

Barneston Area Cameras

Village · Gage County · Population 90 (2020 census) · ZIP 68309 · Founded 1884 · Peak population 258 (1920)

About Barneston

Barneston is a village of 90 in southern Gage County on NE 8, about 7 miles southeast of Wymore and 3 miles north of the Kansas line. It stands on part of the site of the agency village of the Otoe-Missouria reservation, where the tribes lived from 1855 until 1881.

History

An 1854 treaty left the Otoe and Missouria a reservation of about 160,000 acres along the Big Blue, straddling the Gage–Jefferson county line and the Kansas line, and they moved there in 1855. Their agency village stood by a spring half a mile east of the river, with a mill, sawmill and blacksmith shop on Plum Creek about a mile away. Settlers pressed to open the land, and most of the tribe left for Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in 1881, the last by 1882.

The town was platted in 1884, when the Marysville & Blue Valley branch of the Union Pacific reached it, and named for early settler Francis M. Barnes. The population peaked at 258 in 1920. A farmhouse near town that local preservationists say reuses material from the old Otoe mission school is one of the last links to the reservation years.

Highways and trails through Barneston

Route	One way	Other way
NE 8East–west through the village	East past the Liberty spur into Pawnee County	West across US 77 to Odell

Nearby towns

Liberty	about 5 mi east-northeast	NE 8 and S-34A
Wymore	about 7 mi northwest	NE 8 and US 77
Blue Springs	about 8 mi northwest	NE 8 and US 77
Odell	about 12 mi west	NE 8
Holmesville	about 11 mi north-northwest	County roads
Burchard	about 14 mi east-northeast	NE 8 and NE 99

Things to see

The Barneston Site (archaeological; National Register; location not published) · Otoe-Missouria reservation heritage · St. Joseph Catholic Church, 406 Wyatt St. · Barneston Cemetery, 1 mi north · Liberty, about 5 mi east-northeast

Health care

No clinic in Barneston; Wymore Medical Clinic, 116 E. H St., Wymore, 402-645-3310 (Beatrice Community Hospital); nearest hospital: Beatrice Community Hospital and Health Center, 4800 Hospital Pkwy. (US 77 North), Beatrice, 402-228-3344 (critical access hospital with a 24-hour emergency department)

Sources: U.S. Census; Wikipedia; Andreas, History of the State of Nebraska (1882); Dobbs, History of Gage County (1918); National Park Service; History Nebraska; National Register of Historic Places; Nebraska Game and Parks; Lower Big Blue NRD; Nebraska Department of Transportation; city, village, school, museum and hospital websites. Distances marked "about" are straight-line estimates.