Lemoyne is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

in northwestern Keith County,

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 82. It lies along

Nebraska Highway 92 Nebraska Highway 92 is a highway that enters the state from Nebraska's western border at the Wyoming state line west of Lyman, Nebraska, to the state's eastern border on the South Omaha Veterans Memorial Bridge over the Missouri River in Omaha, ...

on the northern shore of Lake C.W. McConaughy, by road north of the city of Ogallala, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Keith County. Although Lemoyne is unincorporated, it has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, with the ZIP code of 69146.

History

Founding

In 1909, the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

completed a branch line through the North Platte Valley. Lemoyne Jacobs, a local landowner, had strongly petitioned Union Pacific to build the line and later allowed the railroad to build it through his property. In 1911, the town of Lemoyne was surveyed and named in honor of Jacobs' active role in bringing the railroad to the area.
1925 edition
is available for download a
University of Nebraska—Lincoln Digital Commons.
/ref> The town grew steadily throughout the early 1900s. In 1915, the Lemoyne School District was formed for 19 enrolled students. The following year the Western Bridge Construction Company built a bridge across the nearby North Platte River with bond money. In 1918, local businessmen invested $3,500, roughly $59,000 today, to build a hotel in the town. By 1924, the town had a population of 200 residents, served by Bethany Presbyterian Church (1919) and an expanded school.

Relocation

In 1935, a diversion dam was built near

Keystone, Nebraska Keystone is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in central Keith County, Nebraska, United States. As of the 2010 census its population was 59. It lies along local roads near the North Platte River, northeast of the city of ...

. By 1937, residents of Lemoyne were informed that they must relocate out of the area to make way for Lake McConaughy. While some residents attempted to prevent the creation of the lake, the town was eventually relocated. Beginning in 1937, buildings in Lemoyne were dismantled, hauled to the hills north of the town's original site, and reconstructed. By 1941, the physical structures of the town were removed and the site was submerged under of water. The new town was initially named "New Lemoyne", but the name eventually reverted to simply "Lemoyne". After the relocation, some residents chose to move elsewhere, and the community did not continue the pattern of growth it had enjoyed in its earlier history. In 2004, severe

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

depleted the waters of Lake McConaughy to 350,000 acre feet of water. This drop in water was enough to expose the foundations of the original town site for the first time in 63 years.

References

{{authority control Census-designated places in Keith County, Nebraska Census-designated places in Nebraska