Guide Rock Nebraska - Nebraska Directory

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Village · Webster County · Population 199 (2020 census) · ZIP 68942 · Founded 1870 · Peak population 690 (1910)

About Guide Rock

Guide Rock is a village of 199 on the north bank of the Republican River in southeastern Webster County, on NE 78 just south of US 136, about 10 miles east of Red Cloud and 5 miles north of the Kansas line.

History

The village takes its name from a modest loess bluff about 1½ miles south-southeast, across the river, that the Pawnee called Pa-hur, "the hill that points the way," one of their five sacred places. From about the 1770s to the 1820s a large village of the Kitkehahki (Republican) Pawnee stood near here on the south side of the river. In 1806 a Spanish force under Facundo Melgares visited it, and on September 25 Lt. Zebulon Pike arrived; at a council on the 29th he persuaded the Pawnee to lower the Spanish flag and raise the American one, and he left on October 7. Kansas long claimed the village was near Republic, but A. T. Hill's excavations here in the 1920s settled the question. The Pike-Pawnee Village Site is a National Historic Landmark (1964); it belongs to the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation and is not open to the public.

In the spring of 1870 the Rankin Colony from Omaha made the first settlement in Webster County here; Emanuel Peters and Donald McCallum stayed, and the county's first post office opened that fall. McCallum platted the town in September 1873. When the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad built along the river about 1880–82, the town moved to the depot; it incorporated in 1883, the year the Guide Rock Signal began. The population reached 690 in 1910 and again in 1930, and the Republican River flood of May–June 1935 struck the valley hard. The Superior-Courtland Diversion Dam, built about 1950 west of town, turns river water into irrigation canals for Nebraska and Kansas. Screenwriter and UCLA professor Lew Hunter was born here in 1935.

Highways and trails through Guide Rock

Route	One way	Other way
NE 78North–south through the village	North across US 136 to NE 4 west of Lawrence	South to the Kansas line (as K-128)
US 136Just north of town, at NE 78	East to Superior (about 14 mi)	West past the Starke Round Barn to Red Cloud (about 10 mi)

Nearby towns

Amboy	about 6 mi west	US 136
Cowles	about 9 mi northwest	County roads
Mount Clare	about 10 mi northeast	County roads
Red Cloud	about 10 mi west	US 136
Bostwick	about 8 mi east-southeast	County roads
Superior	about 15 mi east-southeast	US 136 and NE 14
Rosemont	about 15 mi north	NE 78 and NE 4
Lawrence	about 15 mi north-northeast	NE 78 and NE 4

Things to see

The Republican Pawnee Village historical marker on State St., the public place to learn about the Pike-Pawnee site · the Guide Rock bluff, about 1½ mi south-southeast across the river (view from the road) · the Superior-Courtland Diversion Dam and the Guide Rock Diversion Dam WMA (518 acres), about 2½–3 mi west · the Auld-Doudna Public Library, 155 W. Grant St. · the community center and senior center at 120 W. Douglas Ave.

Schools and health care

Schools: Guide Rock is in the Superior Public Schools district: Superior Elementary, Superior Middle School and Superior Senior High School, 601 W. 8th St., Superior, about 14 mi east

Health care: No clinic in Guide Rock; nearest hospitals: Webster County Community Hospital, 621 N. Franklin St., Red Cloud, (402) 746-5600, a 13-bed critical access hospital, about 10 mi west, or Brodstone Healthcare, Superior

Sources: U.S. Census; Wikipedia; Andreas, History of the State of Nebraska (1882); Nebraska State Gazetteer (1890); Who's Who in Nebraska, Webster County (1940); NEGenWeb Webster County; History Nebraska and its historical markers; National Park Service; National Register of Historic Places; Willa Cather Foundation; Visit Red Cloud; Nebraska Game and Parks; Nebraska Department of Transportation; school, hospital and library websites. Distances marked "about" are straight-line estimates.