Scabtown, Gering

I’ve not heard anyone refer to the area as “Scabtown,” but that’s the epithet the North Platte Valley Museum “Gering, Scottsbluff and Terrytown” book says some people used for the upstart alternative main street on 7th Street in Gering.

Apparently there were a couple of competing land interests for where to locate the rail depot in the early 1900s: on land on 7th street owned by a Thornton or land on 10th street owned by a Gardner. Thornton was successful at first. The initial Gering depot was located on 7th street. For reasons the book doesn’t reveal, the depot was later moved to the still-the-main-street 10th street (and replaced with a new building in 1928).

There’s a little chunk of the upstart main street still standing on 7th Street, kept tidy by the Cozad family.

It’s very random, and very cute. Without my history book, I would have had no idea what it was.

Copyright 2010 by Katie Bradshaw