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  HALL COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
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History of Hall County

​In 1857 a band of settlers arrived in the Platte River Valley in what is know today at Hall County. This group of 35 was comprised of mostly German immigrants from the Schleswig-Holstein area and backed financially by a group from Davenport, Iowa. The mission of the first settlers was to establish a community in the region in the hopes that the train tracks would follow the wagon trails that led to the west coast of the United States.

​Other settlers followed the first group and within a few years the settlement stretched west along the Platte and Wood Rivers. The Union Pacific Railroad reached the settlement in 1866 and the town was named Grand Island. 

County Resources

Cairo Roots Museum
Prairie Pioneer  Genealogical Society 
Stuhr Museum
Hall County Newspapers

NEBRASKA RESOURCES

History Nebraska
NebraskAccess
Nebraska State Genealogical Society

adjacent county HISTORICAL SOCIETIES

Adams County
Buffalo County
Hamilton County
Howard County
Merrick County

Contact Us

603 N Plum St
Grand Island, NE 68801

(308) 385-1545