Albion, Nebraska

 

Thanks to the generally remarkably accurate hour-by-hour weather forecasts I knew I had to find shelter by seven p.m. when a severe storm with “damaging winds, large hail and possibly a tornado” was due to hit.  The advisory concluded with the ominous advice “Have a plan and be prepared.”

I was on schedule to reach Albion and its Carnegie by five p.m.  I just had to hope I’d find a motel there or some protected spot for my tent.  As I approached Albion I could see a huge agricultural processing plant, no doubt another Cargill operation, the largest privately held corporation in the US,  promising a motel for executives, contractors and others drawn to it.  And indeed, just behind the Cargill was the Cardinal Inn, so I was saved.  I could mosey over to the Carnegie, half a mile away, and fully enjoy it.

It would be memorable, regardless of its condition, as it would be the thousandth of my career.  I began these travels with 983.  After thirteen in Iowa and three so far in Nebraska, I had come upon that seminal number.  As I clicked off the miles, over eighty of them from number 999 in North Bend, I dwelt upon the countless memories of the many Carnegies I had already visited in over thirty states and seven countries.  Many of the memories were of state specific circuits such as California and Ohio.

Though North Bend’s Carnegie was vacant, it had lost none of its allure, radiating that classic unassuming dignity that is typical of those of small town America, beckoning any passerby into its warm confines.

And so did that of Albion, a little more majestic, graced with columns and slightly more ornate light fixtures, a fitting number one thousand. It had an addition to its rear that hadn’t replaced its original entrance.  It identified itself as “Albion Public Library” with a cornerstone acknowledging its benefactor stating “This building donated by Andrew Carnegie.”  His portrait hung to the right of the circulation desk peering at all those who entered.

I didn’t linger lest the storm come in ahead of schedule.  I had been riding in a light mist for better than an hour as the sky darkened.  If I hadn’t known rain was predicted to continue through the night and into the next afternoon I might have slithered off into a rare thick forest about ten miles before Albion before I got soaked not knowing if I’d have a motel to retreat to, as they aren’t common at all in the small towns I had been passing through.  

If I hadn’t had a good wash the day before I’d have been a lot more eager for a motel. The temperature had gotten to 80, so I was able to douse myself at a small state campground along the Lincoln Highway I rode for nearly one hundred miles.  Markers regularly reminded motorists they were traveling on the first transcontinental road completed in 1913 that ended in San Francisco.  It had earlier been the Mormon Trail before automobiles took over the land. Between 1836 and 1866 the government recorded at its forts that more than two-and-a-half million people crossed Nebraska in covered wagons.

The first telegraph line to the west coast inaugurated in 1861 also followed the route, as did the first transcontinental railroad.  I camped where many of those thousands who had followed the route may have also camped in a forest along the still busy train tracks with freight trains, some long and some short, rumbling by all night.

When I reached Columbus, I turned off the Lincoln Highway and headed northwest to Albion.  I had visited the Carnegie in Columbus in the fall of 2016 when bicycling back to Chicago from Telluride.  I checked to see if it was still the home to a law firm.  

And I also tracked down a Statue of Liberty in the sprawling Pawnee Park.  I flagged down a police car on patrol when I couldn’t find it.  The officer said he wasn’t aware of such a thing and asked where I’d heard about it.  I told him Wikipedia, and he replied with that cliched exasperation of many, uttering “That Wikipedia.”  

I’d seen a Chamber of Commerce near the park and was heading back that way to ask if they knew, but first I stopped at a historical marker devoted to a local citizen, Andrew Jackson Higgins, who designed the WWII landing craft that was the key to the D-Day landings.  Eisenhower said Higgins was “the man who won the war for us.” While I was at the marker, the officer returned and said he remembered there was a Statue of Liberty at the entry to the nearby water park.

I stopped in at the Chamber of Commerce anyway to confirm the location of the Carnegie Library, as Wikipedia gave an address of 48th Street, which was on the outskirts of Columbus, contrary to the usual central location.  Wikipedia had it wrong, as it was near the City Hall on 15th Street and 25th Avenue.  Out of curiosity I asked the young woman helping me if she knew about the Statue of Liberty in Pawnee Park.  She knew it well, as she said she used it for scavenger hunts she organized.  It was a busy day for her, as she said I was the second person who had come in asking questions about the town’s history.  She recommended the nearby Platte County Museum if I wanted to learn more, and said it was only two dollars.  I would have gladly visited it if rain wasn’t imminent.

The storm did hit at seven, lashing the window of my motel room.  It almost made me regret I wasn’t experiencing it pelting my trusty tent.