Purple Cane Nebraska

Former post office · Dodge County · 1872–1892

About Purple Cane

Purple Cane is a former farm community on the bluffs north of the Platte, about 7 miles northwest of North Bend. Only the Purple Cane Cemetery and two markers remain.

History

Irish immigrant Edward Johnson settled here in 1858. Samuel R. Mason's request for a post office was granted on April 15, 1872, and he named it for the purple cane raspberries in his garden; the first office was a hinged box on his wall, with mail from North Bend twice a week. Jane Avery kept it from 1886 until it closed in 1892.

The Purple Cane Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1869, dedicated in 1886, rebuilt after an 1894 fire and closed in 1964; a stone marks its site. The cemetery's first burial was in 1873, and in 1916 Alexander Legge, later president of International Harvester, gave $1,000 for its care. A monument at the post office site was dedicated in 1928.

Things to see

Purple Cane Cemetery, the 1928 post office monument and the church-site stone