Wabash Nebraska

Unincorporated community · Cass County · post office 1886–1965

About Wabash

Wabash is an unincorporated community in western Cass County, about 3.6 miles northeast of Elmwood and 3.1 miles south-southeast of Murdock. The MoPac Trail East from Lincoln ends here at 322nd St., where a trailhead has toilets and parking.

History

Many early settlers came from Indiana, and the town was named for Wabash, Indiana. In April 1886, as the Missouri Pacific built its Weeping Water–Lincoln branch, Oliver Jacobs, formerly the South Bend postmaster, built a store out in a field, and the post office opened that year. About 1888 Wabash was called one of the most promising villages on the line, and Jacobs & Horton built a boating park with an artificial lake half a mile east of town.

By 1890 Wabash had about 200 people, stores, an elevator, the Eddy House hotel, Baptist and Methodist churches, a new schoolhouse, two doctors and a newspaper, the Wabash Weekly News. The post office closed in 1965, and the railroad grade became the MoPac Trail East, 21.6 miles of crushed stone from 84th St. in Lincoln.

Things to see

The MoPac Trail East trailhead at 322nd St. (trail passes $1 a day or $5 a year) · Wabash Cemetery · Elmwood and the Bess Streeter Aldrich House, about 3.6 mi southwest · the Murdock Museum in Murdock, about 3 mi north-northwest