Tales from North Platte

This is the famous North Platte canteen. During World War II millions of servicemen rode through town on the Union Pacific and they could always count on being well serviced by the local ladies. Soldiers were served coffee, sandwiches, cakes, cookies, given a chance to phone home, etc.

North Platte became famous throughout the military for the hospitality shown to the troops. Old veterens still occasionaly write to the paper (North Platte Telegraph) to thank us for the warm greeting. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the Canteen was our most iconic landmark.

So naturally it was torn down by the railroad in 1982 so that they wouldn't have to pay for the upkeep and insurance. A marker and brick "park" sits at the canteen site today. (Downtown ar Front and Chestnut) It's a favrorite spot for the local hobos, speaking of which...



This is a shot of the South Platte riverfront. This is, by any measure, the most interesting spot in town. The bulk of our hobos live under the Jeffers street bridge. I used to work at the American legion club just north of the bridge. I brought a flashlight with me whenever I took out the trash and watched them scatter like cats. They'll murder each other every now and then, and at least one or two hobos will freeze to death under the bridge every winter.

The South Platte is, quite naturally, a favorite spot for teenagers to smoke pot, spray grafitti, and explore each other. This is the place where boys and girls find out if they like boys or girls in relative privacy.

If you are walking along the riverfront an notice a strange metal container and/or a foul chemical smell, back away slowly. You have encountered a meth lab, and you just might be about to encounter a boobie trap or a shotgun blast.

If you want to go sightseeing along the South Platte, do it in the daylight. DO NOT FUCKING GO THERE AFTER DARK. The hobos are very drunk at night, of course, but they arn't as big of a threat as the locals who come here at night, more on that later.

Most of the homeless are out scrounging for this or that during the day, the ones who are at their campsites are sober enough to have a friendly conversation with. What's really interesting though is to explore their empty campsites during the day. Our hobos are true profesionals; boy-scout quality fire pits, nice sleeping bags, buried cans of spam or oysters, logs with nails bored into them, tarps for the rain and long tree branches to support them, even old couches discarded by the locals

The variety of Malt liquors here is surprisingly low. Just the nationa name brands, Miller High Life, King Cobra, Steel Reserve. No Hurricane, no St. Ides, no Coqui...
It's strange, because the market for bargain-brand malt beverages is certainly here.

As for the local activities on the riverfront, well there was the baby bandit. Yes, this was 98 or 99 if I remember right. This was a man who liked to spend the wee hours of the morning walking up and down the hiking trail by the river and masturbating in front of whoever passed by. People were genuinely scared of this man, which I've always found silly. Anyway, he was eventually caught and sent to the Lincoln prison for several years. Feel free to make your own sex offender in prison jokes.

"Missing Legs Found" said the North Platte Telegraph two days after Vicki Soto was murdered in 2001. In its origional report, the paper said merely that Soto had been "dismembered" without going into details. But there were rumors going around. People were saying that her breasts had been cut off, or that the fetus she was carrying had been taken out and carved with satanic symbols, and this was a fire that needed to be put out.

At any rate, the poor woman's missing legs are critical to the story. Her killer, Daniel Losinger, was captured by the Wal-Mart security cameras carrying a leg-shaped package as he rode his getaway bicycle towards the river.

Losinger was a janitor at the bowling alley and was known to enjoy getting brutally drunk at the riverfront. He was a neighbor of Soto's, and some say they knew each other better than people knew. I'm not saying anything.

Something a bit more mainstream next time. read all about Buffalo Bill and Nebraskaland days.