Friend, NE

Friend is a Saline County city on historic US 6, twelve miles south of I-80, where the railroad, farming, and local services meet. Charles E. Friend homesteaded the site in 1870, opened a dry-goods store, and gave the settlement its first name, Friendville. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad reached town in 1871, and its station shortened the name to Friend in 1873. Today the city map includes Friend Public Schools, a hospital, municipal pool, and a public nine-hole golf course, while farming, livestock, retail, and manufacturing provide the working backdrop. Friend is a prairie railroad town with a name that began as one settler's surname and became a whole community.