Welcome to Hazard, NE, USA,
located at the junction of Hwy 2 and 10. Hazard is home to the
Hazard Post Office, the Hazard Café, and best of all —our friendly
Hazard residents. Our village is one of five mid Nebraska
communities in Sherman County, in the heart of America's Great
Plains.
Hazard's population by decade:
1920-167 | 1930-148 | 1940-241 | 1950-152 |
1960-104 | 1970-72 | 1980-75 | 1990-78 | 2000-66
The History of Hazard Reprinted from The Custer Courier,
June, 1957 by Mrs. Alfred Reinertson
John Brewer, Edward Munn, and the Fisher
brothers were the first settlers to settle on the grassy plains of
southwestern Sherman County. They came here about 1878, only eleven years
after Nebraska had been admitted to the Union, and five years after
Sherman County was proclaimed by Governor Furnas. John Boecking and U. J.
McNeal arrived a year later, and other families were those of Hans
Peterson, James Spangsburg, Jacob Benson, Henry Capellen, A.E. Dallgren,
Reinert Reinertson, and Carl de la Motte. These pioneers drove in lumber
wagons thirty miles to Kearney to procure supplies. Small stores were
operated, however, in the neighboring vicinities of Bentora by John R.
Davidson, and by Mr. Byers of Sweetwater. Mail was brought to Sweetwater
by stage route from the Buffalo County Seat.
When the C.B.&Q. Railroad was built through the Beaver Creek Valley in
1886, Mr. Davidson moved his merchandise store from Bentora and set up his
store near the railroad. That was the beginning of the village of Hazard.
There was soon a frame post office operated by Mr. Munn who, himself,
lived in a soddie. Mr. Skinner was the recognized blacksmith of the
community and Mr. Hobart made wagons. The Fullers opened the a store and
quite rapidly the cornfield in which some of the buildings were located
was pushed away as the village grew.
It is believed that the village was named after a conversation when
someone noticed that within the town site there was a dangerous hole which
may have been a washout or a pit dug by a falling meteorite. "That’s a
hazard," is the legendary comment. Perhaps that unique word for a title
was just what was awaited. Thus the new town was named Hazard.