Fifteen miles north of the Kansas border, patches of corn grow in the fertile loam of the undulating Republican River Valley around McCook (pop. 7,994), the market center for much of southwest Nebraska. With the arrival of the railroad, the town (which is still served by Amtrak’s Zephyr and numerous freight trains) grew into a farm trade center, and now is a sedate, content-enough place, with at least two good excuses for a brief stop, both of them on the hill above downtown. The High Plains Museum (closed Mon.; free; 308/345-3661), in a large modern building at 421 Norris Avenue, includes excellent fossil collections, some WW II prisoner-of-war artwork, a room dedicated to Sen. George Norris, and an old drugstore replicated in the very building where Kool-Aid was developed. Up the street, the George W. Norris Home (daily; $3), 706 Norris Avenue, is devoted to McCook’s favorite son, the Nebraska senator who founded the Tennessee Valley Authority and promoted rural electrification during the New Deal 1930s. Norris also authored the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, which ended the traditional “lame duck” sessions of Congress and moved the date of presidential inaugurations from March to January.
In between the two museums, at 602 Norris Avenue, stands Nebraska’s only Frank Lloyd Wright–designed house, still a private residence and not open for tours.
