Howard City (Boelus), NE

Howard City, locally called Boelus, is a village in southwestern Howard County near the fork of the South Loup and Middle Loup rivers. The town was founded in 1885, and the original Howard City name caused mail confusion with Harvard City, so residents adopted the composite name Boelus. The legal papers still say Howard City, which is why both names appear in modern records. Before bridges and rail connections, settlers crossed the two rivers by ford or ferry; that water geography is the first key to the village.

The railroad turned Boelus into a busy local service point. A hotel, lumber yards, stables, stores, a blacksmith, post office, church, schoolhouse, bank, mill, and grain elevator followed, and the Boelus Milling Company shipped flour and grain products from 1886 to 1948. The river also powered a hydroelectric plant from 1914 to 1972. Today Highway 58 runs through the village, with downtown blocks and a grain elevator still marking the old town pattern. The local scoop is that Howard City and Boelus are not competing names on the map; they are the legal and everyday names of the same Loup River and railroad village.