Many Nebraska villages and cities owe their existence to the railroad; some prospered, others lingered and, when the railroad closed, some completely disappeared. One village, just west of Lincoln got its start with the railroad, then, when the railroad moved, the village simply moved with it.
The area around today’s Pleasant Dale was adjacent to the 1864 Steam Wagon Road, which ran west from Nebraska City and, although the steam wagon itself failed, the improved trail proved a popular route west.
The first post office in the Pleasant Dale area was established about a mile away in a dugout on Danker Hill on Feb. 13, 1871. Although postmaster James Iler favored the name Spiritdale, Thomas Best, who arrived in 1872, and was later the precinct assessor and justice of the peace, suggested the name be Bestville.
Although some question it, the name Pleasant Dale was probably given by J. H. Culver of Milford and later termed “the most correctly named town in the country.” Although considered in 1873, Pleasant Dale did not initially get a railroad until two proposals were proffered in 1878. The Atchison & Nebraska Railroad planned a route from Kansas to Lincoln, through Pleasant Dale to Columbus while the Union Pacific asked for a bond approval at the same with a different route. The Union Pacific’s plans were poorly presented and $75,000 in bonds were approved for the A. & N. in 1879.
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That September, the first train arrived in Pleasant Dale at the depot built on land owned by Thomas Best. Probably as a surprise, if not a shock, the A. & N. became part of the Lincoln & Northwestern Railroad, an associate of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad just a year later.
In 1883 J. H. Merrill and Thomas Best platted Pleasant Dale, a general store opened, the post office was moved into the village, the Methodist Church organized and Happel School moved a mile and a half into town.
J. S. Dillenbeck, who arrived in Lincoln in 1878 intending to settle there, was convinced instead to file what is sometimes referred to as the last federal homestead in Seward County. Just west of Pleasant Dale, in 1895, a deposit of what was called “silver-colored metal” was found on Dillenbeck’s land and deemed gold at a concentration of $57 up to $196 a ton.
One optimist said the find was “larger in size and richer in value than any other similar deposit in the world.” Geologists, sightseers and scientists arrived from as far as Chicago, but extracting the gold proved elusive and by the fall of 1899 all plans were discontinued and forgotten.
The 1890s frame school building was still being used when Pleasant Dale initiated a 10-grade high school curriculum with its first graduating class of three in 1905. 1915 saw a brick, two-story building completed which was converted to a 12-grade curriculum in 1924. In 1959 juniors and seniors were consolidated into Milford with the building converted into apartments in 1976.
1897 flooding along the railroad to Milford necessitated reconstruction, which, in 1906 alone removed 78,000 cubic yards of fill. The end result moved the right of way a mile to the south, which moved the railroad and depot from the northside to the southside of town.
When completed, it was said “the new line was so well engineered that a railroad car cut loose in Milford would roll gently [through Pleasant Dale] all the way to the Burlington yards in Lincoln.”
In 1903 Pleasant Dale was incorporated and claimed several hotels, a hardware store, lumberyard, bank and several stores and was described three years later as “an ideal village located on a slightly little hill ... splendid water ... beautiful scenery [and] lots are cheap.” The city’s peak census population was 257 in 1910.
After high school student John Jones showed his teacher an interesting formation he had found, a Detroit, Michigan, Wayne State University professor visited and the formation proved to be “a 100 million-year-old leaf ... the earliest DNA recording yet discovered in the world.”
Beginning in about 1965 the 1,222-acre Twin Lakes Recreation Area north of Pleasant Dale with a 250-acre lake was initiated and by 1990 had added three more lakes. The last passenger train ran through Pleasant Dale in 1968, but today the grade of the old, pre-1906, railroad is still in evidence, marked by several owner-placed signs, one on the southwest corner of 140th and West A streets. The population is again slowly growing and, oh yes, that gold deposit is still there patiently waiting.
Historian Jim McKee, who still writes with a fountain pen, invites comments or questions. Write to him at P.O. Box 5575, Lincoln, NE, 68505 or at jim@leebooksellers.com.