One could say that the Lincoln County Historical Museum, when it opened on America's Bicentennial day, was both long overdue and right on time.

It took 45 years of existence, capped by three years of slow construction, for the Lincoln County Historical Society to open the museum on July 4, 1976.
 
Today's society will celebrate their building's 50th and nation's 250th birthdays with a free lunch and free admission from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the museum at 2403 N. Buffalo Bill Ave. in North Platte. Lunch will be served from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. while supplies last.
 
But more celebrating will follow July 17 with a 6-9 p.m. golden anniversary banquet at the Prairie Arts Center, 416 N. Jeffers St. For information, call 308-5345640 or email lincomuseum@gmail.com.
 
Director/Curator Jim Griffin said the three-course, $100-per-plate dinner, including entertainment and a live auction, is meant to jump-start serious fundraising for a long-discussed addition focused on North Platte's 1941-46 World War II Canteen.
 
Announced in 2019, the addition would extend the museum westward and include scale replicas of the 1918 Union Pacific Depot's trainside entrance and the dining room that served most of the Canteen's 6 million service visitors.
 
The museum grew with an east-side addition in 1993, but society members have "also grown in their understanding of their history (and) an understanding of what a museum entails," said Griffin, who became its second curator in 2007.
 
Now they're "really concentrating on the things that are the most important parts of our history, not trying to tell generalized history anymore." Continue reading...