Geological Survey Bulletin 612 Guidebook of the Western United States: Part B

SHEET No. 5. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

West of Gothenburg the train passes Vroman, Brady Island, Hindrey, Maxwell, Keith, and Gannett before entering North Platte.

The city of North Platte (see sheet 5, p. 30), the seat of Lincoln County and the chief commercial center of western Nebraska, stands at the junction of North Platte and South Platte rivers. It is in the middle of an irrigation district, where sugar beets, hay, and other farm products are raised. About 1,000,000 tons of hay is shipped annually from this town to the mountain markets. Here are a United States land office and a station of the United States Weather Bureau, and 4 miles south of the city there is a State experimental farm.

North Platte is a railroad division point. Here the railroad maintains extensive shops and an icing plant, said to be one of the largest in the United States, where more than 10,000 cars of fruit and other edibles are iced annually. The plant may be seen to the left by the westbound traveler as he leaves the station. At this station the change is made from central time to mountain time, one hour earlier.

Just before entering the city the train crosses North Platte River, which generally carries a considerable volume of water. The South Platte is dry except during times of floods, because its water is used for irrigation farther upstream. The North Platte is 650 miles long and drains about 28,500 square miles. At North Platte it has a maximum discharge of about 20,000 cubic feet a second and a minimum discharge of 70 cubic feet a second. Its average volume of flow during the nine months from March to November is 3,490 cubic feet a second.

Southeast of the city are prominent bluffs of loess, rising abruptly 400 feet above the bottom lands. The loess is about 350 feet thick and lies on the "mortar beds" described on page 30.

West of North Platte there are many small towns and stations concerning which no information need be given except that shown on the accompanying maps. Many of the stations in Wyoming consist only of section houses, and some are nothing more than signposts.

Beyond North Platte the valley widens considerably, being the double valley of the two rivers, and the train passes for several miles through an irrigated district, in the center of which stands Hershey. The fields in the bottom lands are called farms, but similar fields on the highlands are called ranches. This district is in the transition zone between the East, where each plot of rural ground is a farm, and the West, where each plot other than a town lot, regardless of size or uses, is a ranch. Although the term "ranch" is too dear to the heart of the western man to be easily replaced by the more homely term, the tendency in intensive development under irrigation is to speak of "farms."

Near Sutherland, between the rivers, about 6 miles west of Hershey, begins a narrow ridge which toward the west gradually develops into a broad table-land. From Dexter to Ogalalla the South Platte and the railroad are close to the bluffs bordering this table-land. This stretch of the river bed is dry most of the year, all the water being used for irrigation farther upstream.

Here and at other places where the bluffs come close to the river many travelers in the days of the Overland Trail suffered from attacks by Indians and white outlaws, who would swoop down unexpectedly from their hiding places in the hills to murder and plunder. It is difficult for the modern traveler surrounded by the luxuries of the railway train to realize the hardships and dangers endured by the men and women of indomitable courage and energy who under such conditions invaded and finally conquered the West.