Abandoned Towns
Double railroad tracks curving past a gravel crossing, with an abandoned two-story wooden house and pines on the hill behind and a freight train in the distance

Railroad and road town

Belmont

A tunnel camp on the Burlington line south of Crawford that became a small farm town. It peaked at about eighty people in the late 1920s and lost its post office in 1956. A few houses, the old brick school and Nebraska's only railroad tunnel remain.

42°32′59″N 103°21′24″W · ≈4,490 ft

Photo: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Living hamlet · private land

A few people still live in Belmont, and the old brick school is a private home. In a video posted August 23, 2026, a traveler says the land on the way to the bypassed tunnel is private property; a man working there let him drive in and warned that work trucks use the old grade. Ask before you go past the public road, and stay off the main line: freight trains run on the double track beside the town.

Overview

A town built for a tunnel

The 1927 Belmont school, its gable lettered for School District 39, September 2012
The 1927 Belmont school, its gable lettered for School District 39, September 2012 · Photo: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad pushed a line north from Alliance to Crawford in 1888 and 1889. South of Crawford the canyons were too deep to go around, so the railroad bored a tunnel, the only railroad tunnel ever built in Nebraska. A construction camp grew beside it, known as Evergreen City. When it asked for a post office, the name was already taken elsewhere in the state, so the railroad renamed the stop Belmont after one of its officials. The post office opened in November 1889.

The tunnel was finished on August 25, 1889, eight days after the tracks reached it. The town was platted the next year, just as drought and depression hit; by 1893 only five blocks had sold. Farming recovered by the First World War, and in the late 1920s Belmont had about eighty people, two general stores, two churches, a lumberyard and a new two-story brick school.

Cars and the Depression ended that. Farmers drove to bigger towns to shop and sell, the last store burned in 1949, and the post office closed in 1956. Passenger trains stopped in 1969 and the depot closed. In 1982 the railroad laid a double track just west of the old line and the tunnel went quiet. The school taught its last classes in 2008 and is now a private home. A traveler who stopped in the summer of 2026 counted maybe four houses, a few abandoned buildings and the school.

Video

A summer walk through the tunnel

Belmont starts about six minutes in. From a bridge over the tracks the creator films the town and a BNSF freight, then shows an abandoned two-story wooden house, says there are maybe four houses, a few abandoned buildings and the old school that someone seems to live in, and walks the old grade into the graffiti-covered tunnel. He says the land is private and that a man working there gave him permission. Drone shots show the new double track beside the old line. The video goes on to Marsland. An on-screen caption gives Belmont's peak as 80 people in 1920; Wikipedia puts the peak of about eighty in the late 1920s.

Play “Towns That Time Forgot Along Highway 2 in Northwest Nebraska” from YouTube
“Towns That Time Forgot Along Highway 2 in Northwest Nebraska”, by Travel with a Wiseguy on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube when you press play.

Timeline

Tunnel, town and bypass

The north portal of the Belmont Tunnel, with the old grade running in, April 2012
The north portal of the Belmont Tunnel, with the old grade running in, April 2012 · Photo: Chevsapher, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
  1. Dawes County is founded. Its southwestern townships become the Evergreen Precinct.
  2. Work on the tunnel starts before the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy tracks arrive. Contractor Kilpatrick Bros. & Collins digs from both ends through compacted sand and thin rock layers.
  3. A construction camp called Evergreen City grows beside the tunnel. The tracks reach it on August 17, and the tunnel is finished on August 25. The post office opens on November 9 under the railroad's name for the stop, Belmont.
  4. The townsite is surveyed and platted. Drought and hard times follow, and by 1893 only five blocks have sold.
  5. A freight train tears out a large part of the tunnel in November.
  6. The tunnel is re-bored and lined with concrete. A worker is killed when a section collapses.
  7. A two-story brick school replaces the old wooden one west of town.
  8. Belmont's peak: about eighty people, two general stores, two churches, a lumberyard and the brick school.
  9. The last store burns and is not rebuilt.
  10. The post office closes on May 11, after 67 years.
  11. Passenger trains end on August 24. The depot closes soon after.
  12. A new double-track line is built just west of the tunnel. The last train passes through it on May 3.
  13. The school is consolidated into Crawford's district in 2008 and sold at auction in 2010. A lightning fire strikes it in 2013 while it is being turned into a home.
  14. A travel video shows the school, a few houses and abandoned buildings, and the tunnel, on land the creator says is private and entered with permission.

Nebraska's only railroad tunnel

The Belmont Tunnel

Inside the Belmont Tunnel, looking toward daylight at the far portal, April 2012
Inside the Belmont Tunnel, looking toward daylight at the far portal, April 2012 · Photo: Chevsapher, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

The tunnel is 698 feet long by Wikipedia's count, and was dug from both ends at about three feet a day per end, sometimes six. Most of it went through compacted sand with thin beds of hard rock, so the crews needed only light blasting, and the spoil left in carts pulled by animals. Wikipedia says 1,200 men, many of them Italian, stayed on the job after learning the pay was 15 cents an hour rather than the daily wage they had been promised, and that the Nebraska National Guard stood by against vandalism.

The original timber lining did not last. In November 1917 a freight train tore out a large part of it, and in 1919 and 1920 the bore was re-dug and lined with concrete, poured in through holes that an oil derrick dug in the roof. A worker died when a section caved in. Passenger trains used the line until 1969 and freight until May 3, 1982, when trains moved to a new double track laid just west of the old one.

Wikipedia says the railroad still uses the old grade through the tunnel as a service road and that the tunnel, though marred by graffiti, is in good condition. A video posted in August 2026 shows a dirt track through a cut in pale cliffs and walls covered in spray paint.

What's left

School, houses and a cut in the hills

Belmont from the hill across the tracks: an abandoned two-story house, the brick school at left and newer homes, September 2012
Belmont from the hill across the tracks: an abandoned two-story house, the brick school at left and newer homes, September 2012 · Photo: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Belmont is a few buildings on gravel roads east of the tracks. The two-story brick school of 1927 stands on the rise; it closed in 2008, was sold in 2010 and, after a lightning fire in 2013, has been turned into a private home. Near the crossing an abandoned two-story wooden house sits among pines, and a few newer homes are lived in. Wikipedia also lists the town cemetery. In a video posted August 2026 the creator counts maybe four houses.

The tunnel is about half a mile north of the town point, at the head of a deep cut. It is reached along the old grade, on land that creator calls private property; a man working there let him in. The 1986 USGS sheet below shows Belmont on the Burlington Northern east of Highway 2/71, and the 1955 sheet shows the town by the single-track railroad among wooded ridges, with Cochran State Park to the northwest.

  • Belmont school (1927), now a private home
  • Abandoned two-story wooden house
  • A few occupied houses
  • Town cemetery (per Wikipedia)
  • Belmont Tunnel (1889, relined 1919–1920, bypassed 1982), on private land per an August 2026 video
USGS topographic map of Belmont with the railroad and the tunnel to the north
USGS The National Map, topo. Belmont sits by the railroad south of the tunnel cut.
Aerial view of Belmont, the railroad and the surrounding grassland
Aerial imagery, same area. The double-track main line passes the few buildings of Belmont.

Historic maps

Belmont on USGS maps, 1955–1986

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Belmont, 1955
Alliance sheet, 1955, 1:250,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Crawford is the nearest town with services, about 12 miles north. Take Highway 2/71 south and turn east on North Belmont Road. From Rapid City the drive runs south on SD 79 and US 385 into Nebraska, then west on US 20 to Highway 2/71.

USGS topographic map from Crawford south to Belmont with the route drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Crawford11.6 miabout 17 min
  1. From downtown Crawford, turn right on 2nd Street.0.5 mi
  2. At the end of the road, turn left on McPherson Street (US 20).0.5 mi
  3. Turn right on Highway 2/71 and follow it south.8.2 mi
  4. Turn left on North Belmont Road.1.2 mi
  5. Turn right on Breakneck Road.0.8 mi
  6. Turn left on East Belmont Road into Belmont.0.3 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • Highway 2/71 is the state highway between Crawford and Alliance. The last two miles are county roads; Wikipedia describes Belmont as a cluster of buildings on a gravel road, and a video posted August 2026 shows gravel roads by the tracks.
  • The railroad uses the old grade to the tunnel as a service road (Wikipedia), and the creator of a video posted August 2026 calls it private property. Ask before driving or walking it, and expect work trucks.
  • Freight trains run on the double-track main line through Belmont. Cross only at the road crossing.

Photos

Belmont in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Belmont?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

Railroad and road

More railroad, road and fort ghost towns

The nearest in Nebraska.

Reconstructed log barracks and two small log buildings on the grassy 1874 parade ground at Fort Robinson, under bare treesGuide

Fort Robinson

42.67, -103.47

Dawes County, Nebraska

The Army post where Crazy Horse was killed in 1877 and the Northern Cheyenne broke out in 1879, later a cavalry remount depot and a prisoner-of-war…

State parkRailroad and road
A gravel street in Monowi running past dry grass toward a tall grain elevator and a stand of trees under a blue skyGuide

Monowi

42.83, -98.33

Boyd County, Nebraska

A railroad village platted in 1902 that counted 123 people in 1930 and one in 2010. Elsie Eiler, its only resident, runs the tavern and the library…

Population oneRailroad and road

All 120 railroad, road and fort ghost towns →

Nearby

Other sites near Belmont

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Nebraska index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. Wikipedia, "Belmont, Nebraska", retrieved October 2026: Evergreen City and the renaming, the post office dates (November 9, 1889, to May 11, 1956), the 1890 plat and the five blocks sold by 1893, the peak of about eighty in the late 1920s, the stores, churches, lumberyard and school, the 1949 store fire, the end of passenger service in 1969, the gravel road, the cemetery, the school's 1927 building, 2008 consolidation, 2010 auction and 2013 lightning fire, the coordinates.
  2. Wikipedia, "Belmont Tunnel (Nebraska)", retrieved October 2026: the 698-foot length, the 1888–1889 construction, the contractor, the workforce and wages, the National Guard, the August 17 and 25, 1889, dates, the 1917 damage and 1919–1920 relining, the 1969 and May 3, 1982, dates, the service road, the graffiti and the tunnel's condition.
  3. ghosttowns.com, Belmont: fact sheet (2WD road, spring to fall, climate, remains of the school, a couple of buildings and the tunnel).
  4. Travel with a Wiseguy, "Towns That Time Forgot Along Highway 2 in Northwest Nebraska", YouTube, posted August 23, 2026: the video on this page; the houses, abandoned buildings and occupied school, the private land and permission at the tunnel, work trucks, the BNSF train.
  5. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026.

Photo and map credits