Cuming City Nebraska - Nebraska Directory

Cuming City Area Cameras

Former town · Washington County · 1854–1872

About Cuming City

Cuming City is a ghost town on the Missouri River bluffs in eastern Washington County, about 4 miles northwest of Blair just off US 75. Only the Cuming City Cemetery remains: about 11 acres of never-plowed loess-hills prairie kept by the Audubon Society of Omaha, with a state historical marker half a mile west of US 75 on County Road P14.

History

P. G. Cooper and two partners claimed the townsite in September 1854, and settlers arrived the next spring. The town was named for Thomas B. Cuming, the territory's acting governor, and its post office opened on February 8, 1856. That year the legislature chartered a ferry and a "Washington College" here, and the Nebraska Pioneer newspaper began; the Cuming City Star followed in 1858. By 1857 the town had 53 houses, three stores and three hotels, and it was incorporated on February 16, 1857.

The railroad crossed the Missouri at Blair in 1869, and Cuming City emptied: its Methodist and Baptist congregations and its Masonic lodge moved to Blair between 1869 and 1872, and on January 19, 1872, the post office was renamed Herman and moved to the new railroad town to the north. Burials in the cemetery date from 1856; in 1976 the grounds were set aside as a nature preserve because the prairie there had never been plowed.