1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Grand Island

GRAND ISLAND, a city and the county-seat of Hall county, Nebraska, U.S.A., on the Platte river, about 154 m. W. by S. of Omaha. Pop. (1900) 7554 (1339 foreign-born); (1910) 10,326. It is served by the Union Pacific, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the St Joseph & Grand Island railways, being the western terminus of the last-named line and a southern terminus of a branch of the Union Pacific. The city is situated on a slope skirting the broad, level bottom-lands of the Platte river, in the midst of a fertile farming region. Grand Island College (Baptist; co-educational) was established in 1892 and the Grand Island Business and Normal College in 1890; and the city is the seat of a state Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Home, established in 1888. Grand Island has a large wholesale trade in groceries, fruits, &c.; is an important horse-market, and has large stock-yards. There are shops of the Union Pacific in the city, and among its manufactures are beet-sugar—Grand Island is in one of the principal beet-sugar-growing districts of the state—brooms, wire fences, confectionery and canned corn. The most important industry of the county is the raising and feeding of sheep and meat cattle. A “Grand Island” was founded in 1857, and was named from a large island (nearly 50 m. long) in the Platte opposite its site; but the present city was laid out by the Union Pacific in 1866. It was chartered as a city in 1873.