Paxton, NE

Paxton is a Keith County village on Highway 30, the Lincoln Highway Scenic and Historic Byway, about twenty-two miles east of Ogallala. The Oregon Trail passed roughly a mile south of the present village, while Alkali Lake lay about two miles southwest on the Pony Express route. Paxton began as Alkali beside the Union Pacific Railroad in the late 1860s, a siding named for the alkaline soil and equipped with a telegraph station, water tower, and depot.

The surrounding corridor had an earlier military and trail history through Fort Alkali, which protected travelers and later railroad workers. Alkali was renamed Paxton in 1885 for William A. Paxton, a rancher, businessman, and Union Pacific contractor who also operated the Keystone Cattle Company. The village incorporated that same year and grew into a local service center with a school, businesses, a library, and a city park. Today Highway 30 carries the old rail-and-trail route through Paxton, leaving the village tied to the Platte country, the Oregon Trail, and the name of the man who helped build its railroad era.