Sidney, Nebraska: Fort Town on the Gold Rush Road

Sidney, Nebraska was platted in the fall of eighteen sixty-seven as the Union Pacific Railroad drove westward, and it was named for Sidney Dillon, one of the railroad's directors. The Army established Sidney Barracks the same year to protect the tracks from Sioux raids, and the post was renamed Fort Sidney in eighteen seventy. The fort's real importance came in the mid-eighteen seventies, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota.

Sidney became the primary starting point of the Sidney-Black Hills Trail, the main overland supply route to the gold fields. Freight wagons, prospectors, and fortune-seekers all passed through. Fort Sidney closed in eighteen ninety-four after the frontier era ended.

Today Sidney is Cheyenne County's seat, a city of about six thousand anchored by an outdoor retailer that drew shoppers for decades from across the High Plains.