Papillion Businesses Interview with Sarpy County Museum’s Executive Director, Ben Justman, Part Three
Image of Ben Justman, Executive Director of the Sarpy County Museum
I am curious about how all the cities started out in Sarpy County.
High level overview- let’s start the beginning.
-Bellevue
So, Bellevue gets its start with what’s behind me as really the gateway to the west. It’s a fur trading post. There’s a ferry here. It’s all operated by Peter Sarpy. And in 1854, The Kansas Nebraska Act takes place. It allows for settlement across the Missouri River; Kansas and Nebraska. And so, people start coming here and some of them pass through on their way to California or elsewhere eventually, but many settled here and so Bellevue gets it start really out of that.
In the early days, Bellevue was hopeful and expected to be the site of the transcontinental railroad crossing – Council Bluffs across Missouri. And it was politicking that went on. Nothing new in the years before the Civil War. That really didn’t strike out for Bellevue. Bellevue also hoped to be the seat of the territorial capital for the Nebraska territory. Both ultimately went to a very young town to the north, which today is Omaha.
So, Bellevue, even though [for a] couple years seemed very prosperous. There was a lot of development here. It really started to fade away. And so, if it had not been for, by the 1880s, a four year institution, Bellevue College, that was established that brought young people here, [to] put some economic development into the community, and then, in the 1890s, the establishment of Fort Crook, which today became Offutt Air Force Base, Bellevue probably would have become a ghost town. But it didn’t, and has had a number of successes obviously along the way here. It’s the oldest continuous settlement in Nebraska. So, that’s Bellevue’s origin story in a nutshell.
-Papillion
The next would be a Papillion. Papillion was established in 1870. There were a number of towns similar to Papillion that were established and became ghost towns. Papillion succeeded for two reasons. One, they had a mill which drew farmers into town and that mill was only going to be successful so long as they had a railroad connection. This is a time where if you don’t have a railroad line, you’re pretty much done as a community. And so, the early residents of Papillion appealed to Union Pacific and put some financial skin in the game and paid them to ensure that their town was not just going to become another ghost town, that it was financially viable. And so Union Pacific built a line through the town and from there, Papillion has grown especially over the last 50 years, where it’s become really an active growing community.
A big boon for Papillion and it’s early days, as I said it was established in 1870, [in] 1875 it becomes the county seat for Sarpy County. So, that really is a financial and political boon for Papillion. Bellevue had been shrinking at this point. And so having the county seat was really a major feather in its cap to ensure that Papillion was going to be around for the foreseeable future.
Is it the story about fur trader that we hear for naming Papillion, is that true?
There’s a lot of unknowns. There has been some research done recently by an academic scholar who did look into it and from what I can recall, there were French fur traders who named the creek, the Papillion Creek. And from there because the town was established, just off the creek, took that that name.
-Gretna
Gretna gets its start also tied to the railroad. Burlington built towns along the railroad. There were a couple not as successful towns near Gretna, largely consisting of Irish immigrants or some Dutch immigrants, as well. And they would move to Gretna and kind of get that going in the 1880s. And it remains relatively the same size, relatively agrarian until again probably the last 30 years. Now, it’s the fastest growing city in the state and the fastest growing county.
-Springfield
Springfield, fourth of the cities gets its start as an unsuccessful ghost town. It originally was a town several miles away called Sarpy Center that was going to have the railroad come through and it was going to have the courthouse and the courthouse ended up going to Papillion. So, Sarpy Center lost out. The railroad decided not to build in Sarpy Center as well. And so the town founder, James Spearman, who was a Civil War veteran, took most of his buildings, hitched him up to horses and drug them a couple of miles down the road to where the railroad was – where the Missouri Pacific was and started Springfield. So, that’s how Springfield gets its start.
The last one doesn’t happen till the mid-20th century, which is La Vista. It has a different totally different story than the kind of pioneer origin story. It’s really a group of individuals who wanted to create there. They had a housing subdivision that was actually an unincorporated Sarpy County.
Was this the 1950s?
All those other cities have the luxury of time and with that transformation – La Vista does not. I mean, they don’t necessarily go from dirt roads and horse and buggy. They have to stand out. Yeah, you know, city planning and ideally sidewalks, monitor paved roads, figuring out a pathway for public education in their community. All of that had to be sorted out in a relatively short amount of time by people who were not necessarily politicians and community members who stepped up to the challenge. There was a little bit of you know, developing a police force, having a volunteer fire fighting force, all of that and he figured it out in the early years in the 1960s.
So, yeah, each has their own unique history. And when you put them together, you get a wonderful history of Sarpy County!
Other parts in this series:
Sarpy County Museum Interview: Ben Justman, Executive Director of the Sarpy County Museum, Part One
https://papillionbusinesses.com/blog/sarpy-county-museum-interview-executive-director-ben-justman-part-one
Sarpy County Museum Interview: Ben Justman, Executive Director of the Sarpy County Museum, Part Two
https://papillionbusinesses.com/blog/papillion-interview-ben-justman-executive-director-of-the-sarpy-county-museum-part-two/