Grand Island Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.

From the record

“Following the first "big fire" related in the chapter on pioneers of the first colony as having swept the old settlement in the late 'fifties, the next big fire was that of Engel & Siegmund's pearl barley mill, destroyed in 1876. The mill had been erected only a year previously at a cost of $5,000.”
History of Hall County, Nebraska; a Narrative of the Past with Special Emphasis Upon the Pioneer Period of the County's History, and Chronological Presentation of Its Social, Commercial, Educational, Religious, and Civic Development from the Early Days to the Present Time, and Special Analysis of Its Military and Civil Participation in the Late World War (1920). Machine-read text.

One of 28 National Register listings published here for Hall County · listed in 2017 · category: District.

Sources: the county history on the Internet Archive · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Roughly bounded by S. Front Street, N. Walnut Street, alley south of 2nd Street, and N. Kimball Street, Grand Island, 68801
When was it listed? December 2017
Category. district
City. Grand Island city
National Register reference number. 100001800 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

The ground it stands on

6,308 words

The chapter on Grand Island City in History of Hall County, Nebraska; a Narrative of the Past with Special Emphasis Upon the Pioneer Period of the County's History, and Chronological Presentation of Its Social, Commercial, Educational, Religious, and Civic Development from the Early Days to the Present Time, and Special Analysis of Its Military and Civil Participation in the Late World War, published 1920 names Grand Island. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

This chapter will only treat of the early settlement and civic development of Grand Island. Its city government will be detailed and the development and growth of its public utilities and parks. The part that Grand Island has played in the manufacturing, industrial, commercial, and financial achievements of Hall County will be merged in the separate chapters on those subjects that are to follow this one. Likewise will the growth of her churches be included in the treatment of their respective denominations, her schools treated as -a part of the school history of the county, the press, professions and social and fraternal institutions be taken up in separate chapters relating to those respective activities.

Passage source: History of Hall County, Nebraska; a Narrative of the Past with Special Emphasis Upon the Pioneer Period of the County's History, and Chronological Presentation of Its Social, Commercial, Educational, Religious, and Civic Development from the Early Days to the Present Time, and Special Analysis of Its Military and Civil Participation in the Late World War, published 1920.

The original plat of Grand Island was filed for record September 29, 1866, and recorded in Book B, page 13, by Clerk Fred T. Evans. The document was found by Abstractor William Frank, at Omaha. Prior to this time Grand Island had nothing to show title to streets and alleys, beyond twenty-one years possession of the same, the county records then showing title only in the Union Pacific Railroad Company.

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 Grand Island City - 6,308 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

2 since 2012

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Grand Island Historic District between 2012 and 2017, burning about 4 acres in total. None started naturally. None 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 burning	1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1

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

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
18 August 2012	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Nebraska Forest Service	not named
18 October 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Nebraska Forest Service	not named

Every fire recorded in Hall County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Grand Island Historic District: 2 producers. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Talc-Soapstone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Grand Island Mill	Talc-Soapstone	Producer
	Grand Island Talc Mill	Talc-Soapstone	Producer

Every working recorded in Hall County

Storms near this property

14 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Grand Island, the town this property stands in, in 14 storm reports between 1994 and 1996: 7 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 1995	Hail	Grand Island	$1,500,000	no account filed
August 1995	Hail	Grand Island	$1,000,000	no account filed
August 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Grand Island	$100,000	no account filed
July 1995	Hail	Grand Island	$50,000	no account filed
August 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Grand Island	$5,000	no account filed
August 1995	Tornado (F0)	Grand Island	$2,000	no account filed
April 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Grand Island	-	Thunderstorm winds gusted to 64 mph at Grand Island. The roof of a convenience store on the east side of town received considerable damage.
May 1996	Hail	Grand Island	-	no account filed
May 1996	Hail	Grand Island	-	no account filed
June 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Grand Island	-	no account filed
July 1995	Hail	Grand Island	-	no account filed
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Grand Island	-	no account filed
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Grand Island	-	no account filed
August 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Grand Island	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Hall County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Hotel Yancey (The)	under 500 feet	1984
Grand Island United States Post Office and Courthouse	under 500 feet	2006
Grand Island Carnegie Library	0.1 miles	1975
Hall County Courthouse	0.1 miles	1977
4th Street Commercial Historic District	0.2 miles	2019
Liederkranz	0.2 miles	1978

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 100001800 in Record Group 79.
Hall County	All 28 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
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.