6 Nebraska Town Feuds That Go Back More Than a Century

Try explaining to someone from another state why Nebraska’s athletic department cleared Memorial Stadium, the Huskers’ home turf, for two high schools to settle a rivalry there.

Nobody explains it well.

These are the Nebraska town feuds that go back more than a century.

1. Scottsbluff and Gering

Scottsbluff and Gering sit close enough along the North Platte River that a driver rolling between them barely notices the city limit sign change.

It only looks that way.

Gering had a twelve-year head start on its neighbor, platted in 1887, before Scottsbluff was platted a few miles away in 1899.

A third town, Terrytown, sits right between them and mostly stays out of it.

Scottsbluff and Gering field separate school teams, separate mayors, and a rivalry the local paper still calls a crosstown grudge match whenever football, basketball, or wrestling season rolls around.

Neither side lets the other forget a loss.

A visitor passing through on the state highway would never guess two separate cities, and two separate identities, sit on either side of that stretch of road.

2. Lincoln and Omaha

The fight between Lincoln and Omaha over Nebraska’s capital started with a political trick, and Omaha never got over losing it.

In 1867, state lawmakers moved the capital out of Omaha and handed it to a settlement of about 30 people.

Omaha chose that town’s new name.

Lawmakers from Omaha tacked the name “Lincoln” onto the bill as a poison pill.

They bet rival legislators would balk at naming a town after a president some of them still resented.

The bet backfired.

The bill passed anyway, and Omaha lost the capital for good.

Omaha’s newspapers mocked the decision at the time, predicting the new capital would come to nothing and that only lawmakers and prisoners would ever have reason to visit it.

3. Fremont and Columbus

Fremont and Columbus have played each other in football for more than a century, and the trophy on the line is called the F&C Cup.

That much sounds ordinary.

In 2024, that changed.

Nebraska’s athletic department moved the 105th meeting into Memorial Stadium, the same field where the Huskers play, after a scheduling gap opened up that weekend.

The game was first scheduled to be played in Fremont, a fraction of Memorial Stadium’s size, before the schedule shuffle bumped it all the way up to Lincoln.

Fremont leads the all-time series 49-45-2 over Columbus.

A regular-season high school game, in a Big Ten stadium.

Out-of-staters hear that and assume a state championship was on the line.

It wasn’t.

Fremont and Columbus just take Highway 30 that seriously.

4. O'Neill and Atkinson

A fight over the Holt County courthouse ran for decades between O'Neill and Atkinson, and Atkinson never once won it.

Not for lack of trying.

Atkinson pushed to split Holt County, all 2,413 square miles of it, so Atkinson could become the seat of a brand-new county.

A petition circulated in 1883, followed by a vote in 1884 that the Omaha Bee reported lost by 300 votes.

Atkinson pushed again in 1888, and fresh proposals followed as late as 1908.

None of it worked.

By the 1890s, Atkinson's newspaper editor was publicly accusing the county board of fraud, and O'Neill kept the courthouse through every round anyway.

O'Neill has run Holt County's business from that courthouse for more than 140 years since.

Holt County's government page still lists O'Neill as the seat today, and Nebraska's state historical society still tells the story of Atkinson's long fight to take it away.

5. Stockville and Curtis

Stockville and Curtis fought over the Frontier County courthouse three separate times, and Curtis lost every single one.

More votes, not enough.

Nebraska law required a 60% supermajority to move a county seat, not a plain majority.

Curtis came close in 1920 too, and it still didn't clear the 60% bar.

Curtis tried again in 1930 and once more in 1950, and Stockville held on both times too.

Stockville, home to a precinct of around 40 people today, still holds the Frontier County courthouse.

Curtis, the bigger town down the highway, never got the trophy.

6. Broken Bow and Westerville

Custer County's seat was still up for grabs when Broken Bow challenged Westerville for it, before Broken Bow even had much of a downtown.

Broken Bow won anyway.

Two brothers named Gandy had platted the Broken Bow townsite only months earlier, betting a raw prairie stop could out-hustle an established rival.

Broken Bow's founders challenged the older, more established Westerville for the county seat in the fall of 1882.

Westerville had the head start, the population, and every reason to expect it would keep the courthouse.

Broken Bow took the county seat in 1882, then challenged Westerville for the county fair too, in 1883.