Holdrege, Nebraska

Holdrege was founded in eighteen eighty-three when the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad pushed across the Nebraska plains and needed a county seat for newly organized Phelps County. The town was named for George Ward Holdrege, the railroad's general manager. Early settlers were drawn largely from Sweden, and the town retains a strong Scandinavian heritage. The soil beneath Phelps County is unusually productive: a deep, fine-grained loam, and the area is farm country, with much of the cropland irrigated from wells tapping the Ogallala Aquifer.