We arrived at Kearney, Nebraska, this past Thursday and will continue to the Omaha area tomorrow. If you’ve travelled east or west through Nebraska on I-80 you would have noticed the Kearney Archway.
The Archway (also known as The Great Platte River Road Archway) is a museum of and monument to Nebraska’s and the Platte River valley’s role in westward expansion. The Archway is directly over I-80 three miles (5 km) east of Kearney, Nebraska.
In the 1840s thousands of settlers passed through the area before heading west where the Mormon trail, Oregon trail and California trail converged at the nearby Fort Kearny.
And to think, those early settlers were in covered wagons and did not have an interstate to navigate. No gas stations taking our money, either.
Nope, I wouldn’t want to go back to those days. I like my “covered wagon” just fine and I’d rather feed my “horses” at the fuel pump then have to buy grain and feed and then keep from stepping in the by-product. They had hostile Indians…I’ll take my chances with the highway patrol. :-)
Yep. We’ve passed under this sucker a few times. Never stopped there, though. Always in too big a hurry to get the hell out of Nebraska! Just kidding (I think).
Might be worth a stop sometime. The archway was actually designed by a Walt Disney design team, which made sense once I saw it. The exhibits are contained in the arch, over I-80, and it takes about 45mins to an hour to walk a self guided audio tour.
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