Curtis Nebraska 69025

Curtis is Frontier County's largest town, platted in 1886 by the Lincoln Land Company shortly after the railroad reached the site (the line was completed to Curtis on October 6, 1885). An earlier post office bearing the Curtis name had already been established nearby in 1877, named for a trapper called Curtis who had settled at the mouth of a local creek. The town was incorporated as a village in 1887 and became a City of the Second Class in 1922. Curtis grew into a railroad division point on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy's "High-Line," with a roundhouse and machine shop serving freight traffic between Sterling, Colorado, and Holdrege, Nebraska -- growth that eventually made Curtis far larger than the county seat, Stockville, though Curtis never managed to win the county seat away despite repeated attempts. Today Curtis is home to the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture, a campus of the University of Nebraska system, and brands itself "Nebraska's Easter City" around an annual Palm Sunday pageant. In 2014, Curtis's tap water was recognized as the best-tasting rural water in the nation at the Great American Water Taste Test. With a 2020 population of 806, Curtis remains the county's economic and educational hub.

As the county's largest town and home to a University of Nebraska campus, Curtis functions as Frontier County's true commercial and educational center, even though the much smaller Stockville has held onto the county seat since 1872. Its railroad-division-town roots, best-tasting-water recognition, and "Easter City" branding give Curtis a stronger identity than its modest size might suggest.