BlockBefore

Liberty, Nebraska

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1955 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Liberty Township. It lies in ZIP code area 68381. The Survey maps it on the Liberty quadrangle. 37 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,302 feet above sea level.

Liberty within Gage County

Population over time

2 figures

Liberty fell from 76 to 37 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
201076
202037-39 (-51%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 11 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

4,833 words on this township

History of Gage County, Nebraska; a Narrative of the Past, with Special Emphasis Upon the Pioneer Period of the County's History, Its Social, Commercial, Educational, Religious, and Civic Development from the Early Days to the Present Time, published 1918 names this settlement in its chapter on Liberty Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

The village of Liberty is located on the main line of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad between Chicago and Denver, by way of St. Joseph. The townsite comprises a part of the southeast quarter of section 35, a part of the southwest quarter of section 36, in Island Grove township, besides a part of the northwest quarter of section 1 and part of the northeast quarter of section 2 in Liberty township ; it lies within a mile of the east line of Gage county. It is the trade center of quite a scope of rich farming land in both Gage and Pawnee counties. The original townsite was owned by Nathaniel Cain, Frank Muchmore, and Allen B. Jimmerson. It was deeded by them to the Lincoln Land Company and the plat of the town was filed in the office of the register of deeds in Gage county on the 19th day of June, 1881. The railroad was built through the county in 1881 and trains began running in the fall of that year.

Passage source: History of Gage County, Nebraska; a Narrative of the Past, with Special Emphasis Upon the Pioneer Period of the County's History, Its Social, Commercial, Educational, Religious, and Civic Development from the Early Days to the Present Time, published 1918.

In the early '70s Cornelius S. Wymore had been appointed postmaster for this community and the office was called Liberty. It was on his farm, half a mile west of the present town. In 1879 he opened a drug store in connection with the postoffice. At that time the mails were carried twice a week between Pawnee City and Blue Springs. When the village was laid out, its founders adopted the name of Mr. Wymore's postoffice as a suitable cognomen for the prospective town.

Passage source: History of Gage County, Nebraska; a Narrative of the Past, with Special Emphasis Upon the Pioneer Period of the County's History, Its Social, Commercial, Educational, Religious, and Civic Development from the Early Days to the Present Time, published 1918.

The little village built up rapidly. The first merchant was E. W. Lane, who, as early as 1882, had a general merchandise store. Mr. Lane's venture was soon followed by others, and in a short time Liberty was a town of several hundred people, in which every class of business was represented, - general stores, restaurants, drug store, hardware stores, lumber yard, elevators, barber shops, meat markets and the like.

Passage source: History of Gage County, Nebraska; a Narrative of the Past, with Special Emphasis Upon the Pioneer Period of the County's History, Its Social, Commercial, Educational, Religious, and Civic Development from the Early Days to the Present Time, published 1918.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Liberty Township - it names this place 10 more 10 times.

Fires near this place

6 since 2008

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Liberty between 2008 and 2016, burning about 226 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Debris and open burning4
Equipment and vehicle use1
Arson/incendiarism1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
4 May 2008Debris and open burning2.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
3 April 2009Debris and open burning170 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
2 April 2011Arson/incendiarismunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
5 March 2016Debris and open burning50 acresKansas Forest Service98
15 March 2012Equipment and vehicle use4.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
22 January 2009Debris and open burningunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Gage County

Storms near this place

18 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Liberty in 18 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 9 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 1994Tornado (F0)Liberty$5,000,000A tornado touched down on the north side of Liberty, then proceeded to lift and touch down through the east side of town. It caused extensive structural damage to outbuildings and mobile homes. Some trees were also uprooted.
August 2023HailLiberty-Public reported quarter to ping pong sized hail.
April 2023Thunderstorm WindLiberty-Fire Department reported tree trunks snapped and sheds destroyed on Plum Road near S 108 Road.
July 2020Flash FloodLiberty-Public called in with report of 5.3 inches of rain at that it was still raining. There was significant flooding of Wolf Creek.
July 2020Thunderstorm WindLiberty-Public reported tree limbs down.
July 2020Flash FloodLiberty-Public reported water over the road at current location and that other county roads in the area are flooding.
March 2019HailLiberty-The public reported nickel size hail covering the ground.
May 2013HailLiberty-The hail was mostly nickel-size but a few reached quarter-size.
June 2010Heavy RainLiberty-The cooperative observer near Liberty measured a 24 hour storm total of 3.5 inches (although most fell in less than 6 hours). Some lowland flooding of farm fields was noted around the area.
August 2010Thunderstorm WindLiberty-Thunderstorm winds estimated at over 60 mph blew a 20 by 40 foot metal sheet from a farm shop building onto a neighbors tree. The time was estimated by radar but it was probably from the same storm that caused some tree damage just to the southwest near Barneston.
August 2006Thunderstorm WindLiberty-Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 60 mph downed tree limbs near Liberty.
October 1997Thunderstorm WindLiberty-Trees blown down.
June 2009HailLiberty-no account filed
May 2008HailLiberty-no account filed
June 2008HailLiberty-no account filed
July 2006HailLiberty-no account filed
June 1998HailLiberty-no account filed
June 1997HailLiberty-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Gage County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Barneston5.6 miles10
Badger6.0 miles10
Wymore9.9 miles10
Blue Springs10.1 miles10
Virginia11.1 miles10
Holmesville12.3 miles10
Rockford13.1 miles11
Krider14.0 miles10

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on LibertyAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2363569The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 830697. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.