Taylor Nebraska 68879

Taylor was platted in 1883 on land staked off a farm adjoining the homestead of Joseph Rusho, and won a close county-seat contest against its rival Almeria by just two votes. The town takes its name from Ed Taylor, a local pioneer settler. Much of Taylor's early growth — five general stores, two banks, two hotels, two livery stables, and two newspapers by the 1890s — was built in anticipation of a railroad that never arrived; the line stopped 13 miles east at Burwell, and drought years later forced banks to close and businesses to relocate.

Taylor is an incorporated village and the Loup County seat, with a 2020 Census population of 141, down from 190 in 2010 and 207 in 2000. Its ZIP code is 68879. The Pavillion Hotel, built in 1887 in anticipation of the railroad that never came, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 2003, local artist Marah Sandoz has created "The Villagers," life-sized plywood cutouts of townspeople placed around town to represent a "shadow population" as the real population has declined — a folk-art landmark documented by Atlas Obscura.