Near Gibbon, a unique experiment in homestead colonization brought the earliest settlers, mostly Union veterans, through the Soldiers' Free Homestead Temperance Colony. Traveling on the Union Pacific Railroad, the first group arrived on April 7, 1871, when the only building was a small section house, and they lived in railroad boxcars until sod or frame homes could be built. Their first impressions were grim, as a prairie fire had recently swept the region and a blizzard struck two days after their arrival, yet of 129 families only one failed to file a homestead claim. East of here ran the Nebraska City-Fort Kearny Cut-off, which joined the main Overland Trail nearby and operated from about 1860 to 1869 to speed travel between the Missouri River, frontier military posts, and Denver by a more direct route than the earlier Ox-Bow Trail, which looped north to the Platte Valley. Freighting on the Cut-off reached its peak in 1865, when 44 million pounds of supplies were shipped west from Nebraska City.