Duncan, NE

Duncan is a Platte County village between the Loup and Platte rivers, eight miles west of Columbus on US 30. The 2020 census counted 392 residents. The transcontinental railroad reached the site in 1866, and the town grew along an overland route that later carried the Lincoln Highway. Duncan was first called Jackson, then renamed in 1880 for General Wood B. Duncan; it incorporated in 1913. The railroad bridge over the Loup River was destroyed by an ice jam in 1881, but rail service and the river valleys continued to shape the village's location.

Duncan still carries both transportation and food-making history. A preserved section of the old Lincoln Highway runs near downtown, with hackberry trees and a concrete marker along the former route. The village is also where Dorothy Lynch salad dressings are manufactured, linking a familiar regional product to a small Nebraska workplace. St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, built in 1939, and the annual Ribfest add community landmarks and a summer gathering. Duncan's map is a village between two rivers, with the highway, railroad, factory, and farm country all close together.