Phelps County, Nebraska

Phelps County, Nebraska

County seat: Holdrege · Organized: April 23, 1873 · Named for: Capt. William Phelps (1808–1889), a Mississippi River steamboat captain · License plates: prefix 37 · Population: 8,968 (2020 census); peak 10,772 in 1900 · Area: about 540 sq mi · Time zone: Central

About Phelps County

Phelps County lies on the flat loess tableland between the Platte and Republican valleys, with the Platte River along its northern edge and the wetlands of the Rainwater Basin scattered across it. Its city is Holdrege, the county seat; its villages are Bertrand and Loomis on NE 23, Funk to the east and Atlanta to the southwest. Sacramento and Westmark are former settlements. The county borders Buffalo County on the northeast, Kearney on the east, Franklin on the southeast, Harlan on the south, Furnas on the southwest, Gosper on the west and Dawson on the northwest.

Gov. Robert W. Furnas called the first election, and the county was organized on April 23, 1873, with Williamsburg as the seat. Phelps Center won the seat in 1879. The Burlington then created Holdrege in 1883, and Holdrege took the courthouse after a disputed 1884 election. The Swedish families who settled the county in the 1880s found groundwater at about 30 feet, and Platte River irrigation water arrived in 1941; the county has held between 8,400 and 9,800 people ever since 1930. During World War II, Camp Atlanta held German prisoners of war who worked on area farms.

Towns of Phelps County

Travel Corridors

US 6 and US 34 run together east–west through Funk, Holdrege and Atlanta. US 6 Corridor → US 183 runs north–south through Holdrege toward I-80 at Elm Creek and south to Alma. US 183 Corridor → NE 23 runs west from Holdrege through Loomis and Bertrand to Elwood. Amtrak’s California Zephyr stops at Holdrege.

Cameras: View Phelps County cameras → · Road conditions: Nebraska 511

Things to See

In Holdrege: the Nebraska Prairie Museum, with its Camp Atlanta exhibit and the National Sod House Society; the Phelps County Courthouse (1910–11); The Tassel; and the Burlington depot. Near Atlanta: the Camp Atlanta marker. North of Bertrand: the Plum Creek Massacre site and cemetery, where a wagon train was attacked in August 1864. In Loomis: the 1915 Farmers State Bank.

Parks and Outdoors

There is no state park in the county; this is Rainwater Basin country, and its wetlands draw hundreds of thousands of migrating ducks, geese and cranes each spring. The Funk Waterfowl Production Area (about 2,000 acres) has the Funk-Peterson Wildlife Trail and draws whooping cranes. Sacramento-Wilcox WMA covers about 2,320 acres; Atlanta Marsh, High Basin and West Sacramento are smaller. In Holdrege, Lake Seldom is a 325-acre wetland refuge with a walking trail. Golf: Holdrege Country Club and the Hi-Line Golf Course in Bertrand.

Phelps County Business Directory

Businesses within 20 miles of: Holdrege · Bertrand · All listings →

Adjacent Counties

Buffalo County (northeast) · Kearney County (east) · Franklin County (southeast) · Harlan County (south) · Furnas County (southwest) · Gosper County (west) · Dawson County (northwest).

Events

The Holdrege Midsummer Festival, formerly Swedish Days, is held in June (June 18–20 in 2026). Bertrand Days and the Bertrand Fair & Rodeo follow at the end of June, and the Phelps County Fair is held at the fairgrounds in Holdrege in late July.

Phelps County at a Glance

Phelps County, Nebraska — organized on April 23, 1873, after an election called by Gov. Robert W. Furnas, and named for Capt. William Phelps (1808–1889), a Mississippi River steamboat captain. County seat Holdrege. Population peaked at 10,772 in 1900 and stands at 8,968, and that number is the story. 172 listings across 8 towns.

Phelps County did not empty out the way many of its neighbors did. It has held between 8,400 and 9,800 people continuously since 1930 and sits only about seventeen percent below its all-time peak. Irrigation is why. The Swedish families who settled here in the 1880s expected to find groundwater at 110 feet and found it at thirty. Platte River water from the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District arrived in 1941, wells and center pivots followed, and the county gained people in the 1940s and 1950s and again in the 1970s.

The railroad did not just influence the county-seat fight; it built the winner. Williamsburg was the first seat in 1873, and the more central Phelps Center took it in 1879. Then the Burlington laid its line seven miles away and created the town of Holdrege. The first train came in on December 10, 1883, the town incorporated on February 14, 1884, and after a disputed election that year the county records reached Holdrege by January 1, 1885. Holdrege is named for George Ward Holdrege, the Burlington’s general manager, who never lived there.

Getting there: US 6, US 34 and US 183 cross the county, with NE 23. The Platte River forms the northern boundary; otherwise this is flat loess tableland on the divide between the Platte and Republican valleys, under center pivots nearly everywhere and part of the Rainwater Basin. Holdrege sits at 2,326 feet. BNSF runs the old Burlington line through town, and Amtrak’s California Zephyr stops there daily. Central Time.

Camp Atlanta held German prisoners of war. It started as a request from Holdrege’s New Industries Committee for a work camp to ease the wartime farm-labor shortage; a prisoner-of-war camp was built instead. Planning began in June 1943, and by November there were about seventy buildings and seven miles of concrete road across three compounds, built for 3,000 prisoners, with about 600 military and 130 civilian staff. The prisoners were German soldiers taken in North Africa and Italy, and they became valuable farm labor until the camp was wound up in 1945–46. One prisoner escaped and came back on his own. When the camp was dismantled, its concrete went into rip-rap for the irrigation canals.

For visitors: the Nebraska Prairie Museum a mile north of Holdrege on US 183 — period rooms, farm machinery, a Lutheran church, a one-room school, an early farmhouse, a windmill and a POW guard tower, plus a World War II Interpretive Center with a scale model of Camp Atlanta. It is the home of the National Sod House Society, and admission is free. Also here: the Plum Creek Massacre site north of Bertrand, where Cheyenne warriors attacked a train of twelve wagons on August 8, 1864 (an older marker says August 7), killing eleven or more men and carrying off Nancy Jane Morton and the boy Danny Marble. The site is south of the Platte, in Phelps County, though the station named Plum Creek gave its name to Lexington across the river. The Speakeasy at Sacramento is a longtime country restaurant.

Outdoors: no state park and no state recreation area; this is Rainwater Basin country. Sacramento-Wilcox WMA, southeast of Holdrege, covers about 2,320 acres of wetland, prairie and woodland; it was a giant Canada goose breeding site from 1967 to 1997 and has a handicapped-accessible hunting blind. The Funk Waterfowl Production Area is one of the premier birding sites in the basin, and endangered whooping cranes turn up there in spring. Johnson Lake and Elwood Reservoir, which travelers often connect with Holdrege, are in Gosper County.

Born here: Gen. Harry Schmidt (Holdrege, 1886), the Marine Corps general who commanded the 4th Marine Division and then the V Amphibious Corps at Tinian and Iwo Jima; Ralph D. Cornell (Holdrege, 1890), the landscape architect of Torrey Pines, the La Brea Tar Pits park and the UCLA campus; federal appeals judge John Robert Brown (Funk, 1909); and federal judge Warren K. Urbom (Atlanta, 1925).