Axtell Nebraska 68924

Axtell was incorporated as a village on December 14, 1885, shortly after the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad reached the site in 1883; Swedish immigrants had begun homesteading the surrounding area as early as 1873, and Bethany Lutheran Church, built in 1876, was Kearney County's first church. Local tradition holds the town was named for the engineer of the first train to pass through.

Adjacent Counties

• Buffalo County — north
• Adams County — east
• Webster County — southeast
• Franklin County — south
• Harlan County — southwest
• Phelps County — west

Nearby Towns

• Funk — 7 miles west
• Minden — 10 miles east, the Kearney County seat
• Holdrege — 13 miles southwest
• Kearney — 17 miles north
• Heartwell — 20 miles east
• Hastings — 41 miles east

Points of Interest

Thunderhead Brewing's production facility and taproom is located in Axtell, where the company brews and packages all of its beers; the taproom serves beer, pizza, and pretzels and offers brewery tours on Saturdays. Axtell is also home to Mosaic (originally Bethphage Mission), a residential-services organization for people with developmental disabilities founded in the village in 1913 by minister K. G. William Dahl — it remains a significant local institution and employer today, though it has since grown into a national organization with locations across several states. Axtell is the hometown of Olympic gold-medalist rifle shooter Gary Anderson, who won gold in 1964 and 1968, and the village carries the historic nickname "The Windmill City" for its once-numerous windmills.

Education

Axtell is served by Axtell Community Schools, a PreK–12 district with two schools (elementary and high school) enrolling about 335 students at an 11:1 student-teacher ratio, lower than the Nebraska state average.

Health

The nearest hospital is Kearney County Hospital, a 10-bed critical access hospital in Minden, about 10 miles east, offering emergency and acute care, surgery, and specialty clinics. Larger regional care is available at CHI Health Good Samaritan in Kearney, about 17 miles north.

US-6/US-34 and Nebraska Highway 44

Axtell sits directly on US Highways 6 and 34, which run together through the village on their way from Holdrege and Funk to the west, through Minden, Heartwell, and on to Hastings to the east. Nebraska Highway 44 also passes through Axtell, overlapping US-6/34 briefly before turning north toward Kearney, about 17 miles away.

Axtell is a village with a 2020 census population of 732, ZIP code 68924. Its economy is built on farming, and the town was historically nicknamed "Windmill Town" for its once-numerous windmills. It is home to Mosaic, a residential-services organization for people with developmental disabilities founded there in 1913 as Bethphage Mission, and it's the hometown of Olympic gold-medalist rifle shooter Gary Anderson, who won in 1964 and 1968.