Clinton, Nebraska 69343

Clinton: Peak population (1930), 157. Post office established August 4, 1885; discontinued 1960. Named for Clinton, Iowa. Platted by Pioneer Town Site Company in 1894.
Ref: Perkey's Nebraska Place Names, Elton A. Perkey. Published by J. & L. Lee Co., 1995, Revised Edition.

Latitude: 42.45.36, Longitude: -102.20.56

US 20 south edge of town
Chicago & Northwestern RR

E-W streets: Oak, Love, Moulton, Clinton; N-S streets: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th
School: 2nd & Love; Church 6th & Moulton

Photos from Brian Garner

1910 view of Trueblood Brothers Livery and Feed business building, Clinton, NE.
Note: open sleigh, spring board wagon, dray wagon.

This 1916 brick school building replaced the earlier one built in 1890. The windmill driven pump provided water
for drinking, washing windows and scrubbing floors

The Gordon Journal, April 21, 1954

Passing of an Era;
Epitaph of Clinton, Nebraska
By Kathleen Swick

   Time was when Clinton was a flourishing little village boasting several general merchandise stores, market, drug store, garage, meat market, barber shop, ice manufacturing plant and café.
   The customer had no need to go beyond Clinton for any of the necessities and many of the luxuries of life.
   There was a church and a four year accredited high school. The town owned and operated its own light plant.
   A 50-piece band, second to none in northwest Nebraska, organized under the able direction of Ray G. Lyon, local banker and collector of Indian relics, curios and Sioux handwork, gave concerts at functions for miles around. The community’s entertainment, which was homemade and fun, included PTA’s, parties and literaries in which both old and young took part.
   Life was pleasant and, for the most part, tranquil. If an occasion feud flared up, it added just the bit of zest that kept existence from becoming stale.
   Elections ---school, village and national--- were taken seriously. The various political issues and merit of candidates were debated hotly for weeks before election day. Rivalry for local office was keen and often caused enmities that lasted long after the successful candidate had assumed the duties of office.
But Clinton’s heyday has passed. Good cars and hard surfaced roads made it easy to run over to nearby towns. The call of the open road lured folks farther and farther afield until, one by one, Clinton’s business-men closed the doors of their establishments and sought greener pastures.
   Then came the war and what was left of Clinton became a war casualty, as one family after another piled their belongings into trailers or the back seats of their cars and headed for the war plants where they could earn as much in a day as many earned in a week at home. Tenantless houses were sold for a song and moved to other towns leaving gaping basements in weed infested yards.
   Today Clinton is inhabited by some 15 or 16 families. The school enrollment dwindled until two teachers very easily take care of the education of the few children in the community.
   Clinton’s fate of near oblivion can be duplicated by the thousands across the nation. It marks the passing of a pleasantly tranquil mode of life when marriages, births, deaths, weather and crops and the foibles of relatives and friends were of more importance than the scheming of foreign dictators or the latest Hollywood scandal.
   The tempo of life has increased. We fly in a matter of minutes a distance that took our grandfathers a good long day of hard slogging behind a team of oxen. We no longer stop to chat with neighbors whom we pass on the road. In fact, we seldom notice them as we hurtle along at 60 and 70 miles an hour.
   Whether we have gained or lost is a debatable question and although we speak with nostalgia of the good old days, I doubt if many of us who remember long hours spent over a hot cook stove, wash tub or of following a walking cultivator down dusty corn rows would really wish them back. (submitted by Helen Selee)

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This page was last updated on
Tuesday, 10-Mar-2009 19:59:37 MDT