Pilger Nebraska 68768

Pilger is an incorporated village in Stanton County, Nebraska, platted in 1880 along the expanding railroad and named for townsite owner Peter Pilger; it was formally incorporated as a village in 1887. Long a small farming community, Pilger became nationally known on June 16, 2014, when a single supercell thunderstorm produced twin EF4 tornadoes that struck the village almost simultaneously, an extraordinarily rare meteorological event caught on widely shared video, destroying or severely damaging a large share of the town's buildings.

The 2014 twin tornado disaster killed two people, injured roughly 20, caused about $14 million in damage, and dramatically accelerated the village's population decline (from 352 residents in 2010 to 240 in 2020). Despite the devastation — including the destruction of its middle school and the near-total loss of St. John Lutheran Church — Pilger rebuilt with the help of FEMA aid and thousands of volunteers, and the community continues to mark the anniversary of the tornadoes as a defining moment in its history.