A history of Crawford,
then and now
Postcards, papers and photographs of Crawford from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad reached Fort Robinson in 1886 on its way to Wyoming. Several miles east of the Fort, the railroad passed through a tree claim belonging to William Annin (also spelled "Annon"), who sold his claim for a new townsite. The "tent city" that sprang up around the railroad was named after Lt. Emmet Crawford, who had been formerly stationed at Fort Robinson but was killed in Mexico in January 1886.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Crawford’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
2 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewDowntown Crawford, Nebraska Postc…, 1907: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Crawford
See all 5 →Crawford, decade by decade
1990s
2 historic places in Crawford
2 places in Crawford are on the National Register of Historic Places, the country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Where they are
When they were listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as President Roosevelt's western tour - a stop (1903) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (8) and the Library of Congress (4). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.