The New International Encyclopædia/Nebraska City

NEBRASKA CITY. A city and the county-seat of Otoe County, Neb., 56 miles south of Omaha; on the Missouri River, here spanned by a fine steel railroad bridge, and on the Burlington and Missouri River (Burlington Route) and the Missouri Pacific railroads (Map: Nebraska, J 3). It has a United States Government building, the State Institute for the Blind, and a public library. The city is the centre of a noted fruit belt, also of a rich corn region. The principal industrial plants include large stock yards, grain elevators, cereal and flour mills, lumber and planing mills, foundries, press drill works, a starch factory, packing and provision house, plow works, breweries, brick works, a distillery, a cannery, and a cold storage plant. Laid out and settled in 1855 on the site of old Fort Kearney, Nebraska City was incorporated as a city of the second class in 1871. Twenty years later it received a charter of the first class, under the provisions of which it is governed by a mayor, chosen every two years, and a unicameral council, one-half of the members being elected by wards and the other half at large. Population, in 1890, 11,941; in 1900, 7380.