Sanborn Maps have original street names

One can always tell when the temperature outside drops like a rock! Stuck in their homes, people start re-opening that genealogical research they hadn’t looked at for a while. Anyway, that’s what I do, either that or clean out closets and who wants to clean closets?

Two inquiries came my way this week. The first came through the Gazette with a woman who was confused by McCook’s street name changes that occurred in the early 1900’s. This town started out with names for streets and re-named them to letters and numbers. For the life of me, I don’t know why except ease of locating lots. If you were looking for the house on the corner of Marshall and Douglass or the house on the corner of East 1st and East D, the second one would be much easier to find. Anyway, if you want to know what the old street names were, you only have to go to the Sanborn Maps on the SWNGS website, www.swngs.org, and select the 1897 map. I will say that the new SWNGS website comes up immediately when I do a search for it which is nice, but it keeps saying that my search on the site its-self isn’t secure. The powers that be assure me that it is safe, and after I click “SEND ANYWAY” my request is filled.

Returning to my subject, the inquiry was where either 505 or 507 Marshall Street was and if the houses still exist. Strangely enough, they do still stand today and I snapped pictures of both. It is going to take a trip to the RW County clerk’s office to determine which home the O’Connell family owned but we are fairly certain that it was the 505 site.

The O’Connell family is a sad story for that time period. James V. and Mary A. came to McCook where James worked as an engineer for the railroad. They had a large family and even having lost a daughter to diphtheria in 1891 and a stillborn son in the early 1900’s, in 1906 they had 9 children: Kate, Tom, aMargaret, James, Gertrude and Jennie ranging in age from 24 to 6 years old. 1904 was a sad year as James died of a heart attack on his locomotive at work and then the children lost their mother, Mary, in 1906. The six youngest are shown still living in the family home in the 1906 McCook census but their names soon appeared in the probate records under guardianship applications.

Frank, who was sixteen at the time, appears to have stayed in McCook and when old enough went to work in the machine shop for the railroad. He later married a young woman, Myrtle Lunn, at her Tennessee home and they returned by train to McCook. The other young children must have been relocated because they are lost in our local records after the guardianship applications.

The second request was for information concerning the Bradbury family of Lebanon. According to the woman researching them, Mr. Benjamin Franklin Bradbury had come to SW Nebraska and laid claim to land where Lebanon is located today. She is 100% correct in that assumption and Mr. Bradbury actually had the 1st Post Office, naming it the Lebanon post office after the town in Ohio that had been his previous residence. It is possible that he gifted the land for the townsite but I have not had a chance to research that yet.

My called said that B.F. had not died in Lebanon but after his passing, his daughter returned with him body which is buried in the Lebanon cemetery.

During some lengthy emails and phone conversations, I gave the SWNGS website to both of them and recommended that they search for as much information as possible on line. One of the two plans a trip back around Labor Day weekend and I assured her that we would open the Library for her if she couldn’t be in McCook for regular research hours.

If you want help don’t hesitate to visit us at our new library location, 322 Norris Ave., Rooms 2-7 on the second floor. There is an elevator for your convenience. Our regular hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays, weather and health permitting, from 1-4 PM. Don’t forget to check out our Facebook page: Southwest Nebraska Genealogical Society.