Clearwater Nebraska

Village · Antelope County · Population 320 (2020 census) · ZIP 68726 · Founded 1880 · Peak population 568 (1940)

About Clearwater

Clearwater is a village of 320 people (2020 census) in Antelope County, at about 1,791 feet in the Elkhorn River valley on US 275 and the Cowboy Trail, about ten miles west of Neligh. It began as a railroad water stop in 1880 and is known today for Clearwater’s Big Rodeo.

To eat and stay: The Waterhole (bar & grill), Two Bills Steakhouse and Three and Company Bakery; campers and RVs can stay at Elkhorn Acres RV Park. Village services: Village Office · Post Office · Public Library · Fire Department · Chamber of Commerce.

History

Clearwater owes its existence to a railroad bargain. Having promised Antelope County four depots, the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad bought a townsite ten miles west of Neligh on the south side of the Elkhorn, just above the mouth of the Clearwater Creek, and put up Clearwater Station in 1880 with a windmill and a water tower for the steam engines. The first passenger train ran through on May 31, 1881, and the village was platted that October by the surveyor H. L. Phelps. A post office had already opened in 1880. What followed was a full small-town century: two newspapers, two banks, a flour mill on the creek, an opera house that became a movie theater, five churches, the fire that took the east side of Main Street in 1896, and the water tower voted in by 78 votes to 9 in 1909 that still stands. The painted-post road through town in 1916 became today’s US 275. The village reached 568 people in 1940. Clearwater, Ewing and Orchard merged their school districts into Summerland Public Schools in 2020, and the new Summerland school opened in October 2021 in the country between the three towns.

Read the full history of Clearwater, Nebraska · How the highway came through

Things to see

Clearwater’s Big Rodeo and the Clearwater Rough Stock Challenge, with events at the Gene Snodgrass Arena through the season · the Cowboy Trail, Nebraska’s rail trail on the old railroad line that founded the town, east to Neligh and west to Ewing · Hackberry Creek Wildlife Management Area (235 acres), about 1½ miles east and ½ mile north · Events in Clearwater