Stromsburg Nebraska

City · Polk County · Population 1,143 (2020 census) · ZIP 68666 · Founded 1872 · Peak population 1,361 (1920)

About Stromsburg

Stromsburg is a city of 1,143 people (2020), the largest in Polk County, at 1,680 feet on US 81 about 5 miles south-southwest of Osceola; NE 66 ends at US 81 just south of town, and NE 92 is about 4 miles north. Its businesses ring a central square kept as City Square Park, with brick streets, a bandstand and a building painted Välkommen, and Governor Frank B. Morrison named it the Swede Capital of Nebraska in 1966. Buckley Park, west of US 81, has a heated pool, picnic pavilions, sand volleyball and free city campgrounds with electric hookups (donations accepted). Stromsburg is on Central Time.

History

Lewis Headstrom, of a townsite company from Galva, Illinois, chose the site in 1870 for Swedish settlers from Ockelbo, Sweden, who had come by way of Illinois, and the town was platted in June 1872. The name joins the last part of Headstrom’s name with -burg; the state historical marker renders it “village on the hill.” The Omaha & Republican Valley Railroad (Union Pacific) arrived in 1879 and the Kansas City & Omaha from Fairfield in 1887. Stromsburg became a village in 1880; after an 1887 fire it formed a volunteer fire department, and on March 13, 1888, with about 1,000 people, it became a second-class city with Headstrom as mayor. Two brickyards were working by the 1880s, and native brick built the Opera House, now the Viking Center. John Buckley and his wife gave Buckley Park in 1912, a Carnegie library was built in 1918, and the 1929 high school is now the Civic Center. Banker Charles H. Morrill, a University of Nebraska regent for whom Morrill Hall and Morrill County are named, lived here from 1873; the 1872 Morrill Homestead southeast of town is on the National Register. The Swedish Festival has been held since 1953. The population peaked at 1,361 in 1920.

Things to see

City Square Park and the brick streets around it · the Viking Center (the 1880s Opera House), 118 E. 3rd St. · the Stromsburg Civic Center, 410 E. 4th St., the 1929 high school with a gym, a 500-seat auditorium and a movie theater · the Victor E. Wilson House, 518 Main St., and the Charles H. Morrill Homestead, half a mile southeast on US 81 (both National Register; private) · the state historical marker at the Buckley Park campground entrance · Buckley Park campgrounds and the disc golf course · The Rose Colored Glass, a wine room at 403 Commercial St. · the Swedish Festival, third full weekend of June