Forest City Nebraska - Nebraska Directory

Forest City Area Cameras

Former town · Sarpy County · incorporated 1858; post office 1859–1886

About Forest City

Forest City was a territorial town about 2 miles west-southwest of present Gretna in western Sarpy County, on the old road and stage line between Omaha and Ashland. Nothing of the town stands, but the Forest City Cemetery on Schram Rd. near 231st St. remains. The map point is the cemetery.

History

A trading post was here by 1856, and Forest City was incorporated on August 18, 1858, with Barney Scott, Peter Forbes, M. I. Shields, William Sayles and George B. Ackley as trustees. Its post office ran from 1859 to 1886. At its height the town had two stores, two boarding houses, a granary, a school, a brass band, the Batchelder and Holman sawmill and St. Patrick's Catholic Church, which had a resident priest, Father J. V. Wallace, from 1880. The Schnack, Langdon, Thomas and Conner families were among its settlers.

In the summer of 1886 the Burlington built its Omaha–Ashland cutoff a couple of miles to the east, and Gretna grew up on the new line; Forest City's post office closed that year, and its people and businesses moved to Gretna. The site is now farmland. The Forest City Cemetery, begun in the early 1860s, holds the Schnack mausoleum of 1922, one of only two mausoleums in the county, and is cared for by the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery next door.

Nearby towns

Gretna	about 2.1 mi east-northeast	Schram Rd.
Melia	about 2.4 mi south	County roads
Linoma Beach	about 5 mi south-southwest	US 6
Springfield	about 8 mi east-southeast	County roads
Ashland	about 8 mi southwest	US 6

Things to see

Forest City Cemetery, Schram Rd. near 231st St. · Gretna, about 2 mi east-northeast · St. Patrick Catholic Church in Gretna, whose parish keeps the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery beside the Forest City Cemetery