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Summer Guided Tours
Monday-Saturday: 9:30 am, 11 am, 1:30 pm and 3 pm
Sunday: 1:30 pm and 3 pm Winter Guided Tours
Monday-Friday: 9:30 am, 11 am, 1:30 pm and 3 pm
Saturday: 9:30 am and 11 am
Tour prices vary, please call for more information.
Webster County holds more than 30 properties on the National Register of Historic Places. The western half of Webster County was officially proclaimed as Catherland by the Nebraska State Legislature in 1965 and is marked with a state historical marker located 14 miles north of Red Cloud.The Willa Cather Thematic District encompasses twenty-six individually significant sites and four historic districts, in and around Red Cloud and Webster County, including 610 acres of native prairie. In all, more than 190 sites are included, making it the largest historic district dedicated to an author in the United States.
Town Tour
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The Childhood Home, the treasure of the restored buildings, contains many family artifacts including the family bible in which Cather changed her date of birth from 1873 to 1876. Grandma Boak's room is exactly as described in Old Mrs. Harris. Upstairs, a "story within itself," is young Willa's (and Thea Kronborg's in The Song of the Lark) small attic bedroom, the one which she papered herself with the wallpaper she took as pay for working at Dr. Cook's Drugstore. The same rose covered wallpaper is there today.
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Built ca. 1878, the Miner house is one of the finest, large historic houses in Red Cloud. Although a more simplified, vernacular interpretation of the Italianate style, the house is the salient example of the style in Red Cloud. Willa Cather's first playmate in Red Cloud was Mary Miner. Cather became friends with all of the Miner children, but especially Carrie. She wrote to Carrie regularly throughout her life and her book My Ántonia is dedicated "To Carrie and Irene Miner, In memory of affections old and true." |
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It was at the St. Juliana Falconieri Catholic Church that Ántonia's baby was baptized, and where she was later married. |
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Grace Episcopal was the Cathers' church from 1922 on. Two of the very beautiful painted glass windows, manufactured in Munich, Germany, were purchased by Willa Cather in memory of her parents. The communion rail was imported from Spain and was given in memory of her brother Douglass. |
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The Farmers' and Merchants' Bank was built in 1888-1889 by Silas Garber, Captain Forrester in A Lost Lady. Here you will see the actual Turkish Doll described in O Pioneers!, the calling card holder mentioned in A Lost Lady, one of Willa Cather's doctoral hoods, the painting which probably inspired the Peter and Pavel story in My Ántonia, Willa Cather's Red Cloud writing desk, and much more. |
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The Burlington Depot, built in 1897 and now fully restored, houses an exhibit entitled The Burlington Railroad: Colonizing Cather's Wild Land. The exhibit emphasizes four themes:
- disposition of the land and town planning in Webster County,
- colonization and settlement,
- markets, and
- the political upheaval of the 1890s.
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Country Tour
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The man who betrayed Annie Sadilek in real life was James William Murphy, whose tombstone reads “Gone but not forgotten.” Most of the Murphy family died within a couple of years, apparently from tuberculosis. This is also the site of part of the Miner Ranch. The Miner Family donated the land here for the Catholic cemetery. Charles Cather and other men from Red Cloud decided to move the graves to Red Cloud around 1905. By that time, the Murphys were either deceased or gone and there was no family left to consent to moving these graves. |
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Clay shelving draws can be seen as you travel north on the Bladen Road. The clay draws are examples of land formations used to provide initial shelter for the pioneer families. A cave type structure was often dug into the side of the hill with a sod house added on the expanded front entry. The Shimerdas (Sadileks) from My Antonia lived in one of these dugouts. |
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The Pavelka farmhouse inspired one of Cather’s most moving moments in her writing. She visited the farm when she came home to Red Cloud, and she maintained her friendship with Annie Pavelka until her death in 1947. Annie received gifts from Willa Cather, including monetary checks to help make farm payments. The fruit cellar measures 10 feet by 16 feet, and ice blocks were used to keep the cellar extra cool. Chairs were lined up along the north wall in the kitchen with a table placed in front of them. John Pavelka sat by the west window to mend clothing and read his papers. Near the stove, which was on the west wall, John collapsed from a heart attack. |
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Other sites include the Old Mill Dam, the Miner Ranch, Bladen Road, the Dane Church, the Suicide Grave, the New Virginia Church, the Cather Homestead, the Divide, the George Cather House, the Catherton Cemetery, Bladen, the Bladen Opera House, the G.P. Cather House, the Bladen Cemetery, and the Cloverton Cemetery. |
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For more photos with captions, visit Nebraska National Register Sites in Webster County on the Nebraska State Historical Society web site. Back to top
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