The Columbus Telegram reported that Nebraska has a new historical marker honoring the Lincoln Highway. The marker is near the Prairie Creek Bridge at 115th Street and 355th Avenue NW of Duncan. The 1.2-mile Gardiner Station section of the Lincoln Highway and the pony-truss bridge spanning Prairie Creek were used from 1913 to 1928, before the LH was rerouted south of the Union Pacific tracks.
The story begins with Bob and Karen Edmison, who in 2005 began the process of getting the Gardiner Station section of the Lincoln Highway listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Bob is a life-long resident of Platte County near Prairie Creek west of Duncan. He knew that the section of 115th Street, on the south side of his property along with the railroad station known as Gardiner Station, was part of the Lincoln Highway.
“Late in 2005 I contacted the Nebraska State Historical Society to ask how to get a bridge and roadway nominated for the National Historic Register,” Karen Edmison said. “I worked with the National Register Coordinator Stacy Stupka-Burda and the Nebraska State Historic Preservation Office and learned the basics of how to prepare a National Register of Historic Places nomination.”
Edmison said she submitted a rough draft of the nomination to the Nebraska State Historical Society in the spring of 2006. She said Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer L. Robert Puschendorf then took over the work using her rough draft nomination….
Puschendorf spent nearly a year completing research for the final nomination which included extensive research of Columbus Telegram archives and then submitted the nomination to the Nebraska State Historic Preservation board…. Approval from the National Park Service came in summer 2007….
Edmison said The Lincoln Highway Association, Nebraska Chapter funded the official plaque at a cost of about $2,600. She and her husband Bob provided the money for the construction of the base of the historical marker and the concrete work around it.
“Bob and Lenore Stubblefield of Shelton are very active in the Lincoln Highway Association, Nebraska Chapter,” Karen Edmison said. “They assisted with getting funding for the plaque part of the marker. The Nebraska State Historical Society and John Lindahl of the Nebraska Historical Marker Program worked with the foundry to get the marker cast.”
Learn more about the Lincoln Highway at www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/.
Tags: Duncan NE, historical marker, Linncoln Highway, Nebraska history, Pony Truss Bridge
Lincoln Highway News 
October 26, 2009 at 3:16 pm |
This is great. Being a native Nebraskan, I’m so glad to hear this.