About Lodgepole

Lodgepole is a village in Cheyenne County in the Nebraska panhandle, on the Union Pacific line along Lodgepole Creek. The 2020 census counted 312 residents, down from 318 in 2010 and 348 in 2000. The village covers about 0.48 square miles. Farming dominates the surrounding country.

History

The place began on 7 July 1867, when Union Pacific tracklayers reached this part of western Nebraska and set up a work station. For its first decade Lodgepole was a railroad settlement: crews living in outfit cars, a water station, a coal station. Soldiers from Sidney Barracks camped nearby to guard the line. The first business not tied to the railroad opened in 1876, when Charles Morton started a dry goods and grocery store and took on the post office. The town was platted in 1884, had about 200 residents by 1886, and incorporated in 1901. Population reached roughly 880 around 1925.

The name

Lodgepole takes its name from Lodgepole Creek. The creek was so called because Native people cut tipi poles from the timber along its banks. The post office adopted the one-word spelling in 1895, while the railroad kept the two-word form for some years after.

Depot and opera house

The Union Pacific built the depot in 1887 to replace an older section house. It served until 1968 and is now the Lodgepole Depot Museum, donated in 1971 by Doris Bates Rowan in memory of her parents. The Lodgepole Opera House, built in 1911 by Frank Isenberger, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 7 July 1988.

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