Fairbury, Nebraska         

History

Only a handful of families had settled in the Little Blue River Valley near the site that would later become Fairbury when Woodforn G. McDowell arrived on the scene from Fairbury, Ill., in 1869.

James Mattingly had homesteaded on the town's site in 1865 and was joined later by B. T. Ryburn and Horace Clark. They both built cabins south and east of Mattingly's in the winter of 1868.

McDowell had originally been interested in the nearby town of Meridian and banked on the fact that the St. Joseph. and Denver City Railroad would build its line through the little Blue Rive Valley. When he realized the railroad would veer away from the Meridian, he decided to start a town that would be more centrally located in the newly formed Jefferson County and the railroad's route.

Accordingly, in the spring of 1869, McDowell filed on the land that would later be the east part of Fairbury and formed a partnership with Mattingly, who owned the west half. The town was platted and surveyed and gifts of lots were given to those who would build in the new town.

Mattingly built a sawmill on the river and established a post office in his cabin, and as promised, the railroad built its line through Fairbury in 1872. The city was incorporated on April 28th that year.

The first brick building in town was used as a courthouse, situated on the southwest corner of the downtown square. It has survived several fires and is a restaurant today. The present stone courthouse was built in 1890.

A hotel was built in 1870 by Sidney Mason and Horace Clark Built a blacksmith shop. One year later, there were two more hotels and a total of five blacksmith shops. In 1870, George Cross started the first of many newspapers in Fairbury. The paper was called the Fairbury Gazette.

In 1874, Col. Thomas Harbine, a capitalist from St. Joseph, Mo. established the first bank. By 1911, Fairbury had four banks.

The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad built a line through Fairbury in 1886 and Fairbury became a division headquarters. An 18-stall roundhouse and rail yard were built and almost 1, 300 people were employed by the line in Fairbury during the 1920s. Fairbury boasted a population of more than 6,000 and had two complete commercial districts.

The town continued to expand to the north and east, adding a college, manufacturers, including Fairbury Windmill Co., which built and shipped windmills  all over the world for more than 100 years. In the 1920s E.J. Hested established a five and dime store that eventually became the nationwide Hested retail  chain.