Rock Bluff Nebraska

Former town · Cass County · settled 1854; post office closed 1904

About Rock Bluff

Rock Bluff is a former town on the Missouri River bluffs in eastern Cass County, about 4 miles east-northeast of Murray and 5.7 miles south-southeast of Plattsmouth. Its brick schoolhouse of 1870, the Naomi Institute, belongs to the Cass County Historical Society and opens at a July open house and by appointment.

History

Benedict Spires settled here in 1854, and H. H. Fowler laid out the town in 1856; the legislature incorporated it as Rock Bluff City in 1858. It was a river landing and an outfitting town for freight wagons and a rival of Plattsmouth, which outpolled it for the county seat in 1861. It had about 150 people in 1880.

In the 1866 election that went with statehood, the Rock Bluff precinct's Democratic votes were thrown out, which gave the Republicans control of the Legislature and with it Nebraska's first two U.S. senators. The Naomi Institute opened in a brick schoolhouse in 1870 and closed within about three years; the building later served as the Rock Bluff School and was listed on the National Register in 1977. The railroads passed the town by, and its post office closed in 1904.

Things to see

Naomi Institute (Rock Bluff School) · Rock Bluff Cemetery · Murray, about 4 mi west-southwest · Plattsmouth and the county museum, about 6 mi north-northwest · Schilling WMA at the mouth of the Platte