Aspinwall Nebraska

Former town · Nemaha County · post office from 1860; incorporated 1870

About Aspinwall

Aspinwall was a river town on the Missouri in southeastern Nemaha County, about 2.5 to 4 miles south-southeast of Nemaha. Nothing remains on the site, which is private farmland; the map point is approximate. The Aspinwall Cemetery and the Aspinwall precinct keep the name.

History

Louis Neal, a settler of mixed descent, came in 1853 and opened a store in 1856; he received the first patent when the Half-Breed Tract was allotted in 1860. I. T. Whyte & Co. bought the town site in 1856, Ben Holladay held 800 lots, and John C. Ellis ran a flatboat ferry. The post office opened in 1860, the Union newspaper started in 1861, and at its boom in 1864 Aspinwall had about 500 people, a steamboat landing, a hotel, a distillery and saloons, but never a church. Future governor John H. Morehead taught school here.

The town was incorporated in 1870, but the railroads went elsewhere; when the Burlington chose Nemaha in 1879, it was the end of Aspinwall. Buildings were moved to Nemaha or to farms, and by about 1918 only two houses stood on the site.

Things to see

Nemaha, where many of Aspinwall's buildings went · Aspinwall Bend WMA · St. Deroin and Indian Cave State Park, on the same Half-Breed Tract, about 5 mi southeast