How Grand Island, Nebraska Got Its Name (An Island in the Platte)
Grand Island, Nebraska, is named for a big island in the Platte River that French fur traders called La Grande Isle. German settlers used the name in 1857, and the railroad kept it when it laid out the present town in 1866.
The island
Long before there was a town, there was the island. The city’s visitor bureau says French fur trappers named it La Grande Isle, “the big island,” in the late 1700s or early 1800s. It was a long strip of land between channels of the Platte, and travelers along the river knew it well.
The first Grand Island
In 1857 a group of 35 German settlers set out from Davenport, Iowa, for the island. The city’s history page, “The Pioneer Spirit,” says the group was backed by a Davenport banking house, and the visitor bureau says they settled near the island’s east end. The settlement took the island’s name. The U.S. Geological Survey’s record also dates the founding to 1857.
The town moves to the railroad
When the Union Pacific came through, it didn’t go right past the old settlement. A 1925 study of Nebraska place names says the railroad laid out the present city “in the spring of 1866 just opposite the old Grand Island settlement.” It adds that the town “was named Grand Island after the large island in the Platte river and also after the original settlement by that name.”
The visitor bureau puts the new town a few miles west of the German settlement. Either way, the name has two layers: the island gave its name to the settlement, and the settlement passed it on to the railroad town.
Where’s the island now?
Don’t go looking for it. The visitor bureau says the island disappeared once the river was dammed upstream to control flooding. The name outlasted the island it came from.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s record says the city was incorporated in 1872. Grand Island is the county seat of Hall County.
Sources & further reading
- Lilian Linder Fitzpatrick, Nebraska Place-Names (University of Nebraska, 1925). A public-domain study of the state’s place names, county by county. The Union Pacific lays out the city in 1866; named for the island and the old settlement.
- Wikipedia, “Grand Island (Nebraska).” The island itself.
- Visit Grand Island, “Nebraska’s Favorite Island.” La Grande Isle named by French trappers; the island gone after the river was dammed.
- City of Grand Island, “The Pioneer Spirit.” The 35 German settlers from Davenport, Iowa, in 1857.
- Visit Grand Island, “Grand Island History.” The settlement near the east end of the island; the railroad town platted a few miles west in 1866.
- GNIS feature 829622 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record for Grand Island. Founded 1857; incorporated 1872.
Spot something wrong? Corrections are noted here with their date, never made silently.
