The Lincoln County Historical Museum covers the history of the North Platte region from the days of the Pawnee and Lakota through the pioneer trail era and into the twentieth century. It occupies a campus of several buildings including a restored 1880s village with original structures moved to the site — a depot, a church, a one-room schoolhouse, and several homestead cabins.
The exhibits on the Oregon and California Trails are particularly good, with authentic wagon hardware and first-person accounts from journals kept by people who crossed this landscape in the 1840s and 1850s. The North Platte Canteen exhibit is the other standout, filling a dedicated gallery with photographs and personal effects donated by families of the volunteers. Admission is inexpensive and the site is worth at least two hours.