Alkali Station Nebraska - Nebraska Directory

Alkali Station Area Cameras

Former stage station · Keith County · 1859–1867

About Alkali Station

Alkali Station was a stage and Pony Express station in the South Platte valley in Keith County, about 3½ miles east of Roscoe. The site, on private land, is listed on the National Register with its location restricted; the map shows the History Nebraska marker on US 30, 1.4 miles east of East County Road 15.

History

Alkali opened in 1859 as a relay station on the Overland stage route along the Platte. It was a Pony Express station from 1860 to 1861 (historians Merrill Mattes and Paul Henderson considered it a home station, where riders changed), a base for the transcontinental telegraph and, during the Civil War, a fortified army post. It declined after the Union Pacific built up the valley in 1867. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 14, 2016, and is preserved by its owners; markers by History Nebraska and the Pony Express Trail Association stand on US 30.

Alkali Station should not be confused with Alkali, the Union Pacific siding about 9 miles farther east that was renamed Paxton in 1885. Other Pony Express stations in the county were Sand Hill (Gill's), south of Ogallala, and Diamond Springs, west of Brule.

Nearby towns

Roscoe	about 3.5 mi west	US 30
Paxton	about 9 mi east	US 30
Keystone	about 7 mi north-northwest	US 30 and the Keystone–Roscoe road
Ogallala	about 11 mi west	US 30