About Harvard
Harvard is a city in Clay County, Nebraska. The 2020 census counted 951 residents. The city covers about 0.64 square miles at an elevation of roughly 1,801 feet. It is part of the Hastings micropolitan area.
History
Tracks of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad reached the site on 20 December 1871. The town was surveyed in March 1872 and platted on land pre-empted by Newman W. Brass, George Van Gilder, Elijah J. Stone and Levi W. Mosher, who sold it to Charles F. Morse of the Eastern Land Association for 500 dollars per quarter section. Harvard incorporated as a village on 1 July 1873. It became a second-class city in 1879, reverted to village status in 1880 when its population fell below the threshold, and returned to second-class city status in 1886.
The name
Railroad officials named the town as part of an alphabetical series of station names along the line, after Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The county seat contest
Harvard was one of the towns that competed to hold the Clay County courthouse in the 1870s. After several disputed elections, Clay Center was selected in 1879. A state historical marker on East Walnut Street records the town's early years.
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Harvard is a Clay County city founded in 1871 and named, fittingly, after Harvard University.
The town is the birthplace of both Baseball Hall of Famer Billy Southworth and musician Paul Revere, frontman of Paul Revere and the Raiders.