GI Location

Unit 1 - Community Geography

Grand Island Location

How did we get here?  The first French explorers and fur traders who recorded our part of the Platte River wrote that one of the islands was fifty miles long.  They named this island "La Grand  Isle"  and from this, Grand Island got its name. 

 

The people who came to settle and begin this community had some choices made for them by the people who arranged for them to come.  Over thirty people came to make a community opposite the large island in the Platte River.  Most of them had come to the United States from Germany and were living in the same part of the city, Davenport, Iowa.

The people who made the decision about where the settlers would live was a group of banking people who formed a town company.  The company was called Chubb Brothers and Barrows.  They thought that the national capital would be moved to the center of the nation.  The town company leaders also thought that a railroad would be built along the Platte River and they wanted the town to be near that river. 

On May 28, 1857 the settlers left Davenport, Iowa and they reached the where they would make their new homes on July 4, 1857.  They built four log houses near each other for protection using trees which they found on the islands in the river.  Those homes were located right next to the land that the Swift Company uses for their business today. 

The town company leaders had been right in their thinking that a railroad would be built through this area.  In 1866 the Union Pacific Railroad built tracks through the Platte River Valley of Nebraska.  The tracks were north of the first Grand Island settlement so, slowly the people and businesses moved closer to the railroad tracks.

Great Links for more information:

Nebraska: A guide to the Cornhusker State by the Nebraska State Historical Society

Grand Island City Home Page: History