The highway Nebraska 2 passes through the town of Alliance, as do the BNSF railroad tracks paralleling the highway. During my drive across the Sandhills, I saw train after train headed east from Alliance. Long trains, the seemingly endless sort, even though they’re going the opposite direction you are, so they’re passing by at your speed plus their speed: well over 100 mph probably.

Every single one was a coal train. The industry isn’t what it used to be, but it isn’t dead, and much extraction takes place in the Powder River Basin, with rail from there converging in Alliance and then heading to the markets in the east. For a fairly small place, Alliance (pop. 8,150 or so) has a large rail yard.

Back up a little further, and the region reveals clear signs of circle-pivot irrigation.

In ag terms, most production in Box Butte County – a favorite of mine among county names – is actually livestock, raised on non-irrigated grassland, which you can also see driving in. As for the irrigated places, that’s corn and wheat, with a smattering of alfalfa, beans, sunflowers and sugar beets. Somewhere up north is a rock formation called Box Butte, a name that I understand the railroads were using in promoting settlement this way, before it was ever official.

I didn’t come to town to learn all that, but I did later. Mainly I came to see Carhenge. The weather that day, September 7, was clear and very warm, which inspired some further looking around. First stop, Alliance Cemetery.

“Bury me in old Box Butte County.” There’s a western swing title in that.

Something I’d never seen on a gravestone before: Scooby-Doo.

Go figure. Maybe Richard “Red” Hardy is the one who wanted it on the stone, since he would have been almost 10 when that cartoon premiered (September 13, 1969), and that’s about the right age to get hooked on such a thing. Then again, I was eight — saw the first episode myself — and yet somehow I’ve remained immune to its charms.

As for the Huskers, I saw them on some other stones in this cemetery. Hardly the only example of fandom from the grave.

I’ve seen cowboy churches and I’ve seen cowboy graves.

The cemetery is east of downtown Alliance, but not that far away. The Box Butte County Courthouse is on Box Butte Ave.

Along with a number of other vintage buildings. Newberry’s Hardware Co., once upon a time, which seems to be 1888 and then maybe an enlargement in 1914? Looks like it needs an occupant.

The 1927 Fraternal Order of Eagles Building.

Slacker that I am, I didn’t take many detail shots, but one of this particular building is available (public domain) that shows how seriously the local FOE took its eagles about 100 years ago.

Hardware Hank is a hardware cooperative. New to me, but that only means I need to get out more.

More murals.

Rhoads’ was a local department store. Gone but not forgotten, at least if you read the mural, which looks refurbished recently. The tag at the bottom says it was a gift of the Alliance High School Class of 1962.

An art deco theater. Nice.

A really cheap way to advertise.

You never know when (and where) Dali will show up. Enigmatic fellow.

And who is poor Jerry?

Antique shop within? A simple desultory Google search doesn’t reveal much. Street View puts the sign’s appearance between 2007 and 2012 (Google didn’t come that much to Alliance.) Even the Library of Congress wants to know.

I found lunch in Alliance that day at Golden Hour Barbecue, which promised (and provided) Texas-style ‘cue. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Same league as Salt Lick, though a little expensive, considering how close the cattle are. Then again, everything seems expensive these days, and it was such a large lunch that I barely needed to eat that evening in my room in Scottsbluff, so that mitigated the upfront cost.

Before heading to the big rocks near Scottsbluff on the morning of the 8th, I took a look around that town as well.

Can’t have too many art deco theaters. When I’ve done image searches for Scottsbluff, the Midwest theater comes up often as not.

A car to match. At least that morning.

Another former small department store, now private offices.

Just outside Scottsbluff is a single grave.

The grave of Rebecca Burdick Winters (d. 1852) She died a faithful Latter-Day Saint, her stone says, on her way to Utah. Officially, it is Rebecca Winters Memorial Park.

“Seven miles northeast of Scotts Bluff National Monument lies a solitary grave,” says Find a Grave. “This site marks the final resting place of Rebecca Winters, who died of cholera on August 15, 1852. Rebecca was only one of thousands of people who succumbed to disease as they made their way west on the overland trails, but her grave is one of only a few that remains identifiable today.”