Lone Tree, a giant solitary cottonwood on the north side of the Platte River about three miles southwest of present Central City, was a noted landmark as early as 1833 and could be seen from great distance, with some travelers estimating visibility at twenty miles away. It stood out on the Nebraska prairies, where timber was rare except in stream valleys protected from prairie fires. The Mormon Trail and the Omaha-Fort Kearny stage route passed by it, and it gave its name to a stage station and to a town later renamed Central City. Measuring ten to twelve feet in circumference and about fifty feet tall, with its lowest branches about twenty feet above the ground, it often sheltered passing travelers who camped beneath it and carved their initials into its trunk. The tree was dead by 1863, probably hastened by that damage, and a severe storm in 1865 brought it down.