Alma Nebraska

City · Harlan County · County seat · Population 1,043 (2020 census) · ZIP 68920 · Founded 1871 · Peak population 1,768 (1950)

About Alma

Alma is the seat of Harlan County, a city of 1,043 at the northwest end of Harlan County Lake, where US 136 and US 183 meet. It has the county hospital, Alma Public Schools, the courthouse, a lakeshore RV park, a nine-hole golf course and a summer pool, and it is the main town for visitors to the lake.

History

Members of the Cheyenne Colony, organized in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, in February 1871 and led by Thomas Harlan, Mark Coad, N. P. Cook and Thomas D. Murrin, chose the site in the spring of 1871, and the Alma Town Site Company surveyed it that April. The town was named for Alma Cook, a young daughter of N. P. Cook. Alma won the first county-seat vote on July 3, 1871, 37 to 5 over the paper town of Napoleon, but Melrose won a second election in 1872 and took the records; "Alma was now dead," wrote the county's first historian. Judge Daniel Gantt ruled in 1873 that the 1871 vote stood, the records came back, and the town revived with Frank Shaffer's house, Guyer's log hotel and, in 1877, John Guyer's store. Orleans challenged Alma again after a disputed 1881 election; the courts confirmed Alma, in 1884 according to later accounts.

The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad's Republican Valley line reached Alma in early 1880, and the Kansas City & Omaha (later the Union Pacific's Alma branch) arrived in 1887. Alma incorporated as a village in 1880 or 1881, got a telephone exchange in 1899, electricity in 1906 and waterworks in 1907. Ashton C. Shallenberger, born in Toulon, Illinois, moved to Alma in 1887, helped found the Bank of Alma, served as governor of Nebraska from 1909 to 1911 and eight terms in Congress, and is buried in Alma Cemetery. About 150 stockholders built the City Auditorium and Sale Barn in 1922–23. The 1935 flood took one life in Alma, and the Harlan County Dam, built 1946–52, put the town on a lakeshore; its population peaked at 1,768 in 1950.

Things to see

The Alma City Auditorium and Sale Barn, 614 Main St. (1922–23; National Register; renovated 2025–26, now a rentable event center) · the Alma Carnegie Library, 111 John St. (1911; National Register; private, view from outside) · the Parrot Theatre, 603 W. Main St., opened in 1933, volunteer-run with first-run movies · Methodist Cove, the Corps of Engineers campground and boat ramp 2½ mi east on South St. · the Pheasant Ridge Trail, 3 mi of concrete path to Methodist Cove · the Peckerneck Horseback Riding Trail, about 12 mi of horse and hiking loops from Alma Vista, 1 mi south · the Alma RV Park on the lakeshore (April 15–October 15, first come, first served) · the Alma Swimming Pool · Alma Municipal Golf Course, 102 Dick Brown Dr. (9 holes) · the Hoesch Memorial Library in City Park · the Harlan County Lake Seaplane Base and Alma Municipal Airport · the Fourth of July, with the "Best Race by a Dam Site" 10K, a parade and fireworks over the lake