WELCOME TO THE HEART OF NEBRASKA!

WELCOME to our Nebraska Highway 2 website. As you make your travel plans for the coming year, whether you are traveling within Nebraska or you are traveling on to Mount Rushmore or for Sturgis Bike week in South Dakota or on to Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, this website will help you make the very most of your travels. Here you can find events in the communities you will be passing through, interesting places you should visit or find the amenities available for your traveling needs.

Nebraska Highway 2 rolls through the heart of the State of Nebraska, from Nebraska City on the banks of the Missouri River in the southeast to Crawford in the Pine Ridge area of the State in the Northwest. Ultimately, you will find a webpage for each of the 33 communities along Nebraska Highway 2. We are adding communities all of the time. If you have a suggestion, a question or would like to make a comment on our website, please feel welcome to use the email address below. We love hearing from you!

Large communities and small communities and some communities that are only a ghost of themselves. Each community has its own history and stories to tell. On the community webpages you will find what you need to meet your traveling needs: food, rest, fuel, events, sights to see, things to do.

SOME HISTORY OF NEBRASKA HIGHWAY 2

Nebraska highway 2 is a discontinuous highway. The highway runs from Nebraska City west to Lincoln where it disappears into the city itself. 82 miles further west it reappears at Grand Island and continues west and northwest to the South Dakota border north of Crawford. The second leg of the highway includes 272 miles of the Sandhills Scenic Byway from Grand Island to Alliance. This leg of Nebraska Highway 2 has been deemed one of the most beautiful drives in the United States.

THE POTASH HIGHWAY

Just east of Alliance along Nebraska highway 2 you will find the remnants of Antioch, Nebraska, a once bustling town in an area which provided potash during World War I. For a brief introduction to the Sandhills’ part in potash production, read a historical accounting from Jim McKee and the Lincoln JournalStar newspaper. Nebraska highway 2 was initially called the “Potash” highway and it traveled east from Antioch to Grand Island and south to Hastings, east to Fairmont and then south to Wichita, Kansas.

The communities in western Nebraska enthusiastically called for a highway route from Alliance to Grand Island which would connect them to the larger economic areas. The discovery of potash near Antioch gave rise to population booms in Antioch and Lakeside. Populations which died off after the war ended and less expensive methods of obtaining potash were relied on once again. However, the need for a dependable drivable roadway did not die off and in 1926 Nebraska highway 2 incorporated that section of the roadway called the “Potash” highway. A great source of information about the history of Nebraska Highway 2 and the Potash Highway can be found at Nebraska State Historical Society.

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