A couple of years back I was looking at a map to get directions to a small town I had to find for a meeting with a client just a little way south of Omaha, Nebraska. Ive always been intrigued by small towns and know most of them in the Omaha area. I noticed one Id never heard of before, Rock Bluff. I did some investigating on the internet and found that it has a bit of an interesting history. It was listed as a ghost town and that REALLY piqued my interest. It took a lot of searching, but when I found it I. WAS. HOOKED. My husband and I have been road-tripping all over the Midwest ever since, exploring small towns and searching for ghost towns. As for Rock Bluff, it is indeed a ghost town. There are two roads left, but the only original building remaining is the school. Originally built in 1870, the Naomi Institute was one of Nebraskas first institutes of higher learning. The town, first settled in 1850, at one time boasted 200 residents and was a major outfitter for pioneers crossing the plains. When the first major bridge across the Missouri was built in Omaha and the rail line was laid several miles to the west, the town took a real hit. The school succumbed to debt and the town to being overlooked. Population dwindled until it was completely abandoned by the 1940s. There are two roads remaining. Broadway was the towns main street. There are only post-WWII houses on it now. School Road takes you up the hill from there to where the school building is. The building is owned by the Cass County Historical Society and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Rock Bluff is about three miles east of U.S. Highway 75 and one mile west of the Missouri River on Rock Bluff Road, near Beaver Lake.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 22:42:42 +0000
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