Our Town: Gothenburg's Feisty SwedesResidents of this Platte Valley city are full of surprises. Story
and photographs
by CHRISTOPHER AMUNDSON |
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Click here to view a slideshow of Gothenburg's Feisty Swedes |
NOTHING IS OUT OF THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY,” said Anne Anderson, lifelong Gothenburg resident, chamber of commerce director and, most importantly, Swede and German through and through.
“Never say never to a Swede or German,” she advised. “They’ll prove you wrong, because we’re both stubborn.”
From the early days of Gothenburg’s founding, Swedes and Germans have been working together – and sometimes butting heads – to create this oasis of a community on the Platte River. Gothenburg is a town that has plenty of Swedes and Germans, and it’s a town where creativity and determination are valued attributes.
Olof Bergstrom, a native of Sweden, traveled America with the Union Pacific Railroad, and in 1882, he stopped at this spot and envisioned a town, or rather, a Swedish colony. He persuaded the Union Pacific to map out “Goteborg,” named for his hometown in Sweden.
Bergstrom went back to Sweden and promised his friends there that Goteborg, Nebraska, America, would be a city where Swedes needn’t learn English. He told them to pack up and join him, post haste.
By the time Bergstrom and his Swede immigrants arrived at their claim in Nebraska, the wealthier – and more punctual – Germans had moved in, bought up the good valley farm ground and renamed the place “Gothenburg,” an Anglicized spelling.
The pleasant Swedes bought the cheaper sandy ground and went about their plans to build a town, Germans included. To this day, you can drive north on Hwy 47 from Gothenburg and find black-soil farms on the east side with names of Gronewald, Block, Kuhlman and Aden and sandy farms on the west owned by Andersons, Carlsons and Petersons.
Old sore feelings – if there ever were any – are a thing of the past in Gothenburg. In the modern day, this is a town that is working together. A new junior-senior high school, a new hospital addition, a library addition, tree-canopied streets and stately old homes with manicured lawns that are green from free city water give this town of 3,700 residents a feeling of harmony and good living. Everywhere we went in town, we ran into pleasant people who were willing to help their neighbors and look out for one another.
Fifty-two years ago Forrest Johnson’s parents moved off their farm/ranch in the hill country south of Gothenburg so that Forrest and his bride, Jewel, could move on. Forrest and Jewel returned the same favor to their son and daughter-in-law a few years ago. Their thoughtful kids came back with a vacation to Iowa where Forrest and Jewel discovered bed and breakfasts. On returning, the Johnsons moved into Gothenburg, bought a 1920s house on F Street and opened the Resting Place Bed & Breakfast. They have found that city living in Gothenburg is just fine for them.
“It’s been an easy town for us to adapt to,” Jewel said over a breakfast of waffles and fruit. “Gothenburg is a very clean town. Not a lot of crime.”
As farmers before becoming city dwellers, the Johnsons have watched Gothenburg with a bit of an outsider’s perspective. They said that the city has had slow, steady growth. It’s progressive, but not booming. There’s not a lot of industry, but the companies that are here are good, clean companies that tie in well with Gothenburg’s agriculture.
Here in Nebraska we love big, wide, flat corn fields as much as we love rolling hills of grass, dense pine forests and oaken river banks. And along our Platte River Valley we’ll find some of our finest corn fields, corn farmers and corn communities. Gothenburg is one of those communities.
The giant grain silos of the All-Points Cooperative elevator announce “GOTHENBURG” in big black letters to visitors entering from the south over the Platte River and I-80. Last fall, when the elevator exploded during harvest season, Gothenburg held its breath until all souls were present and accounted for. The explosion blew a fireball into the Ampride gas station across Hwy 30 and scattered concrete for a block and a half. Fortunately, the explosion went off just after 3 a.m. Six hours earlier or later and a dozen farmers would have been waiting in line to unload grain.
“We’d a been going to funerals for a week if this had gone off during the day,” said Steve Costello, the co-op’s grain manager.
Just south and a little east of the co-op’s elevator is the Frito Lay corn processing facility, a giant complex of steel grain bins, augers, conveyors and a rail-car loading station. The facility takes in food-grade corn from area farmers, cleans it, sorts it and loads it onto rail cars bound for Frito Lay chip plants. Eat a bag of Doritos or Sun Chips west of the Mississippi and, chances are, the corn came from Gothenburg.
The Frito Lay facility has been here for 12 years. It pays a premium to area farmers for their contracted corn and bonuses for even higher quality corn. The facility has been good for area farmers who not only want to keep farming, but want to keep their families in the farming business.
Jim Aden came back to Gothenburg to take over the family farm when he was 26 years old; he’s now 44. That was when Frito Lay was just getting up and running in Gothenburg. Frito’s entrance into Gothenburg was timely because Jolly Time Popcorn (another company that paid farmers a premium) was phasing out of business here. Most of the farmers switched over to Frito when Jolly Time backed off, Aden said. Because of Frito Lay and other good things going in agriculture in the Gothenburg area, Aden says he was able to expand his own farming operation. Others have moved back too, he said, like Scott Bartels, who came back to manage the Frito Lay plant.
“Somebody made a list of the young couples that moved back in the last few years, and there have been 35-40 young couples,” Aden said. “They just keep coming home.”