About Cambridge
Cambridge is a city in the northern part of Furnas County, in south-western Nebraska. It stands on the west bank of Medicine Creek, near where the creek joins the Republican River. U.S. Highways 6 and 34 run through town as Nasby Street. The 2020 census counted 1,071 residents. Elevation is 2,270 feet and the city covers 1.34 square miles, all land. Cambridge Public Schools serves the town.
History
The town was laid out in the 1870s by J. W. Pickle and was known at first as Pickletown. A post office opened in 1874 under the name Medicine Creek. The name became Cambridge in 1880, around the time the railroad arrived.
Where the name came from
Accounts differ. The city's own history tells it this way: railroad officials met with delegates from several towns at Oxford to settle permanent names, and when the Oxford men claimed their name, the Cambridge businessman W. E. Babcock argued that if there was to be an Oxford there ought to be a Cambridge. Other sources treat the origin as unsettled and note it may point to Cambridge in Massachusetts, or to Cambridge in England.
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Cambridge began in the 1870s as "Pickletown," founded by J. W. Pickle, before the railroad reached the settlement in 1880 and renamed it Cambridge. Sitting on the western bank of Medicine Creek near its confluence with the Republican River, Cambridge is Furnas County's largest and most stable town, hosting "Medicine Creek Days" each year.
Furnas County's largest town, on Medicine Creek near the Republican River, formerly known as Pickletown.