Auburn Historic District Auburn, Nebraska

Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

The Auburn Historic District is located in Auburn, Nemaha County, Nebraska. It is significant under Criterion A in the area of Community Planning and Development, Commerce, and Exploration/Settlement, and under Criterion C in the area of Architecture. The Auburn Historic District comprises the City's two commercial centers' - the Downtown Commercial District in the north and Courthouse Square in the south -connected by Auburn's only brick-paved, diagonal avenue. The layout of the city, with two commercial centers, is a physical reflection of the city's settlement and development. Auburn was created in 1882 through the merger of two adjacent, competing railroad towns. Sheridan, initially established in the 1860s, was threatened with abandonment in 1881 when the Burlington & Missouri Railroad (B&M) bypassed the existing town to build its own town, Calvert, only one mile to the south. The survival of towns during this era was dependent on the railroads. Sheridan, with the help of politician Church Howe and businessman Charles Nixon, attracted the Missouri Pacific Railroad (M&P) who built their depot less than a year later on the north side of Sheridan. Sheridan and Calvert subsequently merged in order to gain support for the acquisition of the Nemaha County seat. As a compromise, Courthouse Square was situated halfway between the two towns. Starting in the mid-1880s, with two depots and the County seat, Auburn began to grow into a regional center for commerce. The Auburn Historic District as a whole retains a significant amount of integrity; specifically, the integrity of location, feeling, association, setting, and design. Little development has occurred in the commercial centers; as a result, the Auburn Historic District still has the image and feeling of a small railroad town. The period of significance extends from 1881, when Calvert was first established, to 1950, when Auburn ceased to grow.