Plattsmouth Nebraska

City · Cass County · County seat · Population 6,544 (2020 census) · ZIP 68048 · Founded 1854 · Peak population 8,392 (1890)

About Plattsmouth

Plattsmouth is the seat of Cass County, a city of 6,544 on the Missouri River just south of the mouth of the Platte, about 18 miles south of downtown Omaha. Its brick Main Street, a National Register district, climbs from the river past the Cass County Courthouse to the county museum. US 34 and US 75 run together along the west side of town, and the Plattsmouth Bridge crosses the Missouri to Iowa.

History

Samuel Martin opened a trading post here in 1853, later called the Old Barracks, and the Plattsmouth Town Company was organized on October 26, 1854, by Martin, James O'Neil, the Nuckolls family, J. L. Sharp and others; Sharp suggested the name, for the town's place at the mouth of the Platte. The Territorial Legislature incorporated the town and fixed the county seat here in March 1855, and Wheatley Mickelwait became the first mayor in December 1856. A ferry had carried Mormon emigrants across the Missouri here from about 1848, and steamboats landed at Third and Main in the 1850s.

The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad arrived in 1869 and made Plattsmouth its Nebraska headquarters, with shops that employed up to 800 people before they closed in the mid-1960s; the roundhouse site is now Rhylander Park. The first train crossed the Burlington's Missouri River bridge on August 30, 1881, ending the ferries, and the Missouri Pacific came in 1891. The town counted 8,392 people in 1890, its highest census. Rock Bluff in 1861 and Weeping Water in 1875 and 1878 tried to take the county seat; the red-sandstone and brick courthouse of 1891–92, designed by William Gray of Lincoln, was built partly to settle the question.

The Plattsmouth Bridge, a cantilever toll bridge, opened over the Missouri in 1929 and carried US 34 until a new bridge opened north of the Platte in October 2014. The Harvest Festival, begun during the Great Depression as the Kass Kounty King Korn Karnival, held its 95th edition in September 2026.

Things to see

Cass County Courthouse, 346 Main St. (1891–92; National Register) · the Main Street Historic District, 45 buildings along Main St. between 3rd and 7th Sts. (National Register, 1985) · Cass County Historical Society Museum, 646 Main St. (Tue–Sat noon–4; $2.50), with an 1868 log cabin, a 1913 Burlington caboose and a Lewis and Clark pirogue replica at 2nd and Main · Plattsmouth Public Library, 401 Avenue A (Carnegie building, 1916) · the Plattsmouth Bridge to Iowa ($1.75 toll, cash) · Rhylander Park, on the old Burlington roundhouse site · Randall W. Schilling WMA, 17614 Schilling Refuge Rd., at the Platte–Missouri confluence that Lewis and Clark reached on July 21, 1804, and Rhoden WMA, reached through it · Bay Hills Golf Club (18 holes) and Lake Ridge Golf Course (9 holes) at Beaver Lake · the 1870 Rock Bluff School, about 6 mi south-southeast · Plattsmouth Harvest Festival (September 10–12 in 2026)