O. L. D. Highway

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In 1914 the Omaha-Lincoln-Denver Highway was one of only three major pioneer highways in Nebraska. The Omaha-Lincoln-Denver Highway was referred to as the O. L. D. and passed through Omaha, Lincoln, Hastings, and McCook to Denver. Today this is U.S. Highway 6 and Highway 34. The highway was in fairly good shape for a dirt road at that time. Further west the highway became a deeply-rutted trail.

At that time there were no road markings such as mile markers, direction signs and identification numbers.

In the early 1920's as people began to travel across country more, it created new problems. The O. L. D. Highway didn't have markers. Following is an example of private citizens marking the O. L. D. Highway in Nebraska: "a group from Lincoln went out and put stencils on telephone poles at corners where the O. L. D. Highway would turn.

The stencil said O. L. D. They put the stencil on the post and gobbed paint on it...between Lincoln and Hastings or maybe as far as McCook. There was no system of route-marking highways, those things came later". From: A Story of Highway Development in Nebraska, by George E. Koster, Department of Roads, Lincoln, Nebraska. 1986, page 29.

About the middle 1920's a few concrete road signs were put up. What little that was done was accomplished by private groups and organizations. One of the only remaining concrete sign is on West "O" or Highway 6, four miles west of the flashing light at Emerald. It is at 140th Street just before the Seward County line. By 1925 the highway names were changed to numbers. Thus the O. L. D. Highway became Highway 6.