Gage Co. Historical Society & Museum Stop # 5  pg # 30

  The museum is housed in the Burlington Passenger Station.  One of the buildings left from the passenger rail service that all the railroads used to run.  

  When we entered, we were immediately greeted by a staff member and a volunteer.  They proceeded to give us a quick rundown of the museum areas.  This is very helpful to decide where to start.  There are a lot of subjects and it's well laid out.  We started with the flooding that Beatrice endured for decades.

  I was very surprised by the number of floods and especially the highest feet of the Big Blue River crest.  The worst one was in 1973.  Interesting how the town always kept coming together to repair and rebuild after each one.

  Numerous inventors came from Gage County.  Some of these I had heard of and some not.

  

As far as I know, personally, Dempster was the most well-known person in the area.  Just about everyone in eastern NE and most likely the whole Midwest, knew about Dempster windmills. Plus many other items manufactured in Beatrice.  During WW II, they converted to making anti-aircraft shells and produced 1.5 million of them.  Dempster Mills had several patents.

  One of the first doctors in NE to experiment with x-rays was Dr. C. P. Fall.  I know it must have seemed like magic then, but most things have a pretty crude start.  Especially things involving highly complex technology.

  The museum is well worth a visit plus you get a passport stamp for the effort.  Cindy and I really like to see the history presented in museums, such as this one.  Most small town museums do a very nice job of bringing back images of how life used to be.