Amboy Nebraska

Former town · Webster County · post office 1879–1890

About Amboy

Amboy is a former town on US 136 in Webster County, about 4 miles east of Red Cloud, where Elm Creek comes down to the Republican valley. The Starke Round Barn stands about a quarter mile away.

History

Polley & Son built a small flour mill on Elm Creek here in 1876. A post office named Webster Center, for its central place in the county, opened on March 7, 1879, and was renamed Amboy on December 23, 1879. Amboy was the junction of the Burlington's Hastings line with its Republican Valley line (later maps call it Lester Junction), but Andreas wrote in 1882 that it had never grown beyond a flag station with a store and the post office. The post office closed on January 8, 1890.

The Amboy Milling Co. kept grinding; after the old mill burned, a concrete water-powered mill was built in 1915 about 150 yards north of US 136, between the tracks and Elm Creek. Flour milling ended in the 1940s, and the building is vacant. In 1902–03 the Starke brothers built their 130-foot, three-story round barn nearby; it was listed on the National Register in 1972 and is still a working farm.

Things to see

The Starke Round Barn, 1639 US 136 (tours by appointment, 402-746-4165) · the 1915 Amboy mill (view from the road) · Elm Creek WMA, a few miles north · Red Cloud Golf Course, about 2½ mi west