TWO SHORT BURSTS from the horns of slowing locomotives signaled passengers that they were approaching Long Pine. The tracks are gone, but travelers follow the same route today, chugging along at a much slower, quieter pace on the Cowboy Trail. It passes through Long Pine on its 321-mile journey across the state, providing hikers, horseback riders and bicyclists the most scenic of routes. When the wind is just right, motorists on Highway 20, which runs parallel to the trail, are treated to the scent of the pines drifting from tree-filled canyons a mile or more before reaching the sign that says “Welcome to Long Pine, Beauty Spot of Nebraska.”

Sandra Clark remembers day-long adventures to Hidden Paradise, the creekside community of cabins nestled together in a deep canyon a stone’s throw from town. “We’d float along on our tractor tire tubes all day,” Clark recalled. “It was quiet and relaxing. In the evening the aroma of food would float through the valley, cars would pull in, and then we’d hear the music.” The music came from the famous Hidden Paradise dance pavilion that Carlton Pettijohn built in 1912 against a sheer cliff called Chalk Mountain near Long Pine Creek.

It quickly became the gathering spot for seasonal Hidden Paradise residents, citizens of Long Pine and tourists from across Nebraska and surrounding states. It was the hub of a resort that included the cabins, a heated indoor bathhouse, a slide called “The Plunge,” a carousel and its own orchestra. As a child, Clark was forbidden by her parents to go inside. Instead, she would peek through the windows. “I remember seeing people dancing, lots of cowboy hats and Christmas lights,” she said. Entertainment heavyweights such as Tommy Dorsey and Lawrence Welk lit up the always-full house. The Big Band era and that of the Pettijohn pavilion waned. After years of decline that included a hand-fed family of rafter-dwelling raccoons and a roof support that buckled during a dance, the business folded. Sandra and her husband, Barry, now own the forbidden pavilion of Sandra’s childhood and are working steadily toward its eventual reopening.

Kim Hansen’s 1,400-square-foot log home, built a year after the pavilion, is one of Hidden Paradise’s oldest cabins. It sits near the base of the steep road that drops visitors into paradise from Long Pine and the towering Sandhills above. Hansen’s place is still known as the Girl Scout Cabin to locals and longtime Hidden Paradise vacationers because of the trainloads of Omaha Girl Scouts who ventured here each summer for many years. Hansen hadn’t heard of Hidden Paradise until detouring into Long Pine in 1991.

Upon discovering the pine-covered canyons and clear creek bursting with trout, the Hooper resident was surprised such a place existed. Four hours after finding paradise lost, Hansen bought a cabin. He sold it two years later and purchased the Girl Scout cabin, what he calls his “lil’ bit of paradise.”“There’s a list of people wanting property along the creek,” Hansen said. His is in a trust for his five grandchildren. “Otherwise, you have to beg, borrow or steal to get a spot down here,” he said.

On a golf cart tour we met Webb McNally, who, according to Hansen, is the unofficial mayor of Hidden Paradise. McNally was born above the canyon rim in Long Pine in 1930. He attended high school in Norfolk, graduated in 1947 and hit the road selling office supplies for his father, Charley, who founded Western Office a decade earlier. Today, the office supply company has seven locations in three states. McNally hits the road to paradise whenever possible, often with his wife, Hazel, his “Long Pine gal” of 61 years.

The red, two-story retreat the McNallys built in 1978 replaced a Spartan-brand trailer they moved in when they bought the property in 1966. McNally points out that the company built Air Force bombers before diving into the trailer business. If McNally wanted to take a dive into Long Pine Creek, he could do it from his own bridge. The cabin also has a covered porch, a balcony and a rec room. The cabin is no dive.

McNally is a lifelong angler, but today he’s content to show his secret spots for lunker rainbows, browns and speckled trout to his grandson, Matthew, in exchange for a few quiet hours relaxing on his deck. “Once the tubers arrive, there won’t be any fish to be had along here until September,” McNally said.

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IN LONG PINE, businesses cater to full-time residents as well as a mixture of those inner tube floaters and other adventurous summertime visitors. Some have been coming for years, and there’s the usual rotation of new tourists stumbling upon Hidden Paradise for the first time. Jim Carley is crossing the street when a passerby stops to shoot the breeze in front of Anderson Market, a Long Pine fixture for 85 years. Carley hasn’t been here quite that long but it seems that everyone here knows him.

When 17 acres of prime creek-side real estate came up for sale across the highway, Jim Carley dreamed of moving from Texas to build a resort.

He persuaded his wife, Nancy, to buy into his vision of Pine Valley Resort, but convincing the bankers was another matter.

“They wouldn’t give us a dime. They thought we were crazy,” Carley said. “I think they were right.”

The Carleys found help to achieve their crazy dream with $5,000 here and $7,000 there from friends, all on handshakes.

They built a miniature golf course, pavilion and seven cabins surrounded by peace and quiet and the clear, cool waters of the creek.

After living the dream for a quarter century, Stan and Cynthia Smidt of Kearney made the Carleys an offer they couldn’t refuse and purchased the resort. “This seemed like a natural fit for us,” Cynthia said, with her golden lab, Sophie, by her side.

The Carleys have bought a house in town, and Nancy travels northern Nebraska for Health and Human Services working on behalf of children.

“Jim would like to fish more,” Nancy said of her officially “retired” husband, but he still manages several properties in Hidden Paradise and Long Pine.

With a knowing smile that could convince anyone he’s got it all figured out, and with one arm wrapped around Nancy, Carley let us in on a secret: “Even a long, hard day’s work in Hidden Paradise is better than working a dream job anywhere else.”

For more than a century, people have crammed into this creek bottom for summer rest and relaxation. After constant requests from people wanting to camp and fish on his land, in the 1920s, John Kurtz developed a campground with cabins named The Pines on a shady hillside near the hydroelectric dam.

Jo and Lynn Wilson own The Pines today. Lynn remembers fishing at the dam as a child. A warm spell and a winter’s worth of melting snow combined with a big spring rain doomed the structure. The dam went out in 1961 and the lake went with it.

Concrete shards from the dam remain like fossils in a bend of the creek near The Pines. The dam’s brick pump house survived the washout, and after being rented as a cabin for several years, is now a private residence.

Long before the dam’s failure, young Tom Galleher was learning to play polka on his trumpet by listening to WNAX.

Music and Hidden Paradise have been part of the Bassett native’s life for most of his 92 years. “When those bands started playing, boy, I couldn’t get ready fast enough,” Galleher recalled.

He remembers well the time he filled in for a missing saxophonist at the pavilion. “I went from trumpet to sax in minutes,” Galleher said.

He also remembers the 1995 deluge that destroyed the only two bridges crossing into Galleher’s paradise. Now, what may be the only drawbridges in Nebraska span a bend over Long Pine Creek in front of his shaded cabin. “When the creek gets too high, I raise them,” Galleher said. “This place is just like I want it now, perfect.”

One of Galleher’s neighbors, Chris Ross, calls Hidden Paradise the “sweet spot of Nebraska.” When the seed company salesman isn’t working, casting flies or delivering school supplies to impoverished Mayan children on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as he has for the last 29 years, he’s out in the woods hunting for morel mushrooms.

He finds them near his home at Plattsmouth, fries them up in real butter and plants them on the bar at Long Pine’s Sandhill’s Lounge for the whole town to enjoy. After our Hidden Paradise tour, Ross gave us a seat at his campfire and a fresh-grilled steak smothered with those ’shrooms.

His 1922 dwelling is a rustic man cave with rusted advertising signs and a rack of well-used fishing poles on one wall, and a mounted 5 ¾-pound trophy brown that was estimated to be 25 years old when Ross landed it.

Schools of trout, the lazy creek and an occasional inner tuber drift by on tranquil waters as we finish off our sirloins and cocktails on Ross’ deck.

He stokes the fire with satisfaction as long shadows and a pleasant evening chill settle into the canyon. As the flames flicker, Ross is warm in knowing that his Nebraska paradise is within easy reach for all to find. 

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