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Red Cloud~Our Town...Our Home...Our Lives |
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National Register of Historic Sites in and around Red Cloud
Pike-Pawnee Village Occupied from 1770 to about 1810 or later, the Pike-Pawnee National Historic Landmark has been the subject of intense historical and archeological research. Former Nebraska State Historical Society Museum Director A. T. Hill documented the site as the Republican Pawnee community visited by the 1806 Zebulon Pike expedition. It encompasses nearly 300 acres of Republican River terrace, bluffs, and draws in the Guide Rock vicinity. In addition to the village area of 100 lodge sites, five cemeteries, two hoop game "courts," and a council site constitute the complex. Artifacts of both native and European origin are common.
The Starke Round Barn was built in 1902-3, by the four Starke brothers, Conrad, Ernest, Bill, and Chris, who came to Nebraska from Milwaukee. The massive structure measures 130 feet in diameter and has three levels: the bottom for animals, the second for machinery, and the third (or loft) for hay. The construction method combines balloon framing and heavy timber supports. The Starke Round Barn, located near Red Cloud, is the state's largest and one of the largest in the nation.
Chalk Cliffs and Republican River The chalk cliffs are exposed bluffs along the south edge of the Republican River just south of Red Cloud. The cliffs are a naturally occurring geologic feature, exposed by the action of the Republican River and considered a landmark in the community.
The Nebraska Department of Roads and Irrigation designed the Red Cloud Bridge in 1935 after spring floods weakened the old structure. Although the highway department generally constructed simple truss spans, it instead delineated a continuous truss for the Red Cloud Bridge. The channel spans consist of three continuous pony trusses, flanked by deck girder approaches. To provide sway bracing, overhead lateral struts connect the upper chords of both webs at the bridge piers. The four main piers are constructed of concrete with up- and downstream cutwaters. The piers rest on concrete-filled tubes driven to bedrock. The approach span abutments consist of steel piles encased in concrete, with flared, sloped wingwalls. Highway department engineers took great pains to ensure that the bridge was seated properly to avoid undue stresses at the bearing points, weighing each truss with hydraulic jacks before the concrete deck was poured. The Red Cloud Bridge, located near the town of Red Cloud, is technologically significant as a rare experimental design by the state highway department. Representing a highly unusual foray into continuous truss engineering, the Red Cloud Bridge is unique in Nebraska and is one of the state's most important vehicular spans.
Depots in general played a significant role in Willa Cather's writings. The original two-story section of the depot, constructed in 1897, is the building Cather was familiar with during her last years in Red Cloud. Red Cloud was on the main line of the Burlington and Missouri between Kansas City and Denver. At one time eight passenger trains passed through town daily, making the Red Cloud Depot a busy and exciting place.
St. Juliana Falconieri Catholic Church St. Juliana Falconieri Catholic Church is the church that Annie Pavelka, "Antonia," was married in and where her illegitimate child was baptized. Architecturally the church is a significant vernacular structure, a fine specimen of modest church architecture for the period and, aside from the depot, the most impressive architectural feature of South Red Cloud.
World famous author Willa Sibert Cather (1873-1947) moved with her family from Virginia to the Red Cloud area in 1883. Many of her best known writings deal with life in the Red Cloud vicinity. The Cather House, in which she lived from1884 to 1890, figures prominently in The Song of the Lark, The Best Years, and Old Mrs. Harris. This house, located in Red Cloud, is the most important Nebraska building associated with her literary career.
The Opera House building was constructed in 1885 to house the hardware business of Morhart and Fulton on the ground floor and the opera house above. The stage of the opera house saw the performance of many traveling stock companies and it served as the center of social and cultural life in Red Cloud for more than thirty years. After being silent for 87 years the restored opera house reopened in May 2003.
Warner-Cather House (Cather's Retreat) In 1904 the Cather family left their little rented house on the corner of Third and Cedar and moved into this more spacious house, which they had purchased. Although Willa Cather had left Red Cloud permanently in 1896, she continued to visit her family in this house during the summers and occasionally for Christmas. The house is the setting for the Ferguesson family home in one of her short stories, "The Best Years." Farmer's and Merchant's Bank Building Built in 1888-89 it is also known as the Garber Bank. The bank was organized by Silas Garber, who was its first president. Willa Cather was long a personal friend of the Garber's and eventually used them as prototypes for Captain and Mrs. Forrester in A Lost Lady. The bank is used in two of Cather's other writings, the short story, "Two Friends," and the novel, Lucy Gayheart.
Grace Protestant Episcopal Church Willa Cather was brought up in the Baptist Church, but became a member of Grace Church in 1922. The altar rail was dedicated in memory of Willa's brother, Douglas, and Willa, herself, dedicated two of the stained glass windows - one to her mother and one to her father.
The Webster County Courthouse was built in 1914. The building, a vitrified brick edifice of three stories, is designed in the Second Renaissance Revival style. Trimmed in stone, with a stone foundation, the symmetrical rectangular building features central projecting pavilions at each of its two side ends and a front, south facade that projects slightly across its entire width from the main block of the building. A high parapet above the wall cornice slopes upward slightly toward the center of each facade.
Constructed in 1917-18, the Auld Public Library is an excellent example of educational architecture in Red Cloud. Designed in the Neo-Classical style, the building is a fine representative of early twentieth-century library design as found in communities throughout Nebraska during this period. This facility was the result of William T. Auld's generous donation to erect the first permanent library for the community.
Red Cloud United States Post Office The Red Cloud United States Post Office is a one-story, buff-colored brick building constructed in 1939 in the Modernistic style. While the building retains a high degree of integrity, its historical significance derives from the mural painted on an interior wall. Through New Deal programs such as the Public Works of Art Project and the WPA Federal Art Project, thousands of artists were employed. In 1934 the Section of Painting and Sculpture (renamed the Section of Fine Arts in 1938) was organized under the auspices of the Treasury Department to provide murals and sculpture for the many federal buildings constructed during the New Deal era. Between 1938 and 1942 the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts (generally known as "the Section") commissioned twelve murals for twelve newly constructed post offices in Nebraska. Red Cloud, along with the other eleven post office murals in Nebraska represent the Section's goal of making art accessible to the general population by reserving one percent of new building construction budgets for art.
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