Boot Hill Cemetery - Ogallala, Nebraska

Boot Hill Cemetery - Ogallala, Nebraska

The old time burials in Boot Hill cemetery were generally with their boots on , thus the name “Boot Hill”. The bodies were buried in canvas sacks and laid on several boards. The dirt was then thrown in and the grave marked with a wooden marker. Boot Hill is unique in that within its sod there lies imprisoned many stories of the early days of Ogallala. Some of these stories will never be told, but Boot Hill will always be a reminder of early Keith County History.

In the stirring days of 1875, when the present city of Ogallala was an infant town on the Union Pacific Railroad; Old Boot Hill Cemetery, which is located northwest of Ogallala on a rise, was the burial place for settlers, transients and others who participated in the building of the little prairie. 

Boot Hill was Ogallala’s only official burying ground during the "end of the trail" decade from 1874 through 1884. A hundred or more people were rolled in canvas and dropped into a shallow grave during that time, a remarkable death rate for a settlement that never exceeded 130 permanent residents.

In May, 1867, the first bodies were buried on the hill. They were three Union pacific tracklayers killed in an Indian raid a mile east of what is now Spruce Street.

Many are the stories told of those stirring days when gun battles took their toll of human life and the south side of the railroad tracks echoed with gunfire as some slick gambler or horse thief met his waterloo. The question arose to where to bury these folks who had fallen. In addition to those who died and the problem was to create a place of final rest for these adventuresome souls who formed one of the early day settlements in what is now Keith County.

Location: West 10th & Park Hill Drive, Ogallala

Phone: 800-658-4390