Many Nebraska towns sprung up in the late 1800s out of peoples' shared desire to join forces as a community. Nebraskans assembled to build and share resources such as churches, schools, and shops. Everything the residents needed was right there in easy reach in their little towns. But when roads and then highways made it easier for people to travel farther from home, the populations of these towns began to dwindle. Venus, now a tiny unincorporated community in Knox County, was founded in the late 1800s. The town was named after the goddess Venus thanks to the unspoiled beauty of the area. Its general store was opened in 1879 and its post office was established the next year. The post office closed its doors in 1959; the store held on for another 20 years. After that, the town's decline accelerated.
This general store changed hands many times over the century it was in business. The owners and their families would live in the living quarters at the back of the store.
In its heyday, the Venus store supplied those who lived in the village with everything they needed. From food to general merchandise to animal feed, this store carried it all.
As business declined, the last family to own the shop found that they could no longer purchase stock in the quantity the warehouse suppliers required. Trucks stopped making deliveries to the village. Families moved away, children grew up and left for bigger places, and the population dwindled.
After the general store was shuttered, it was given over to the elements. For years, it continued to stand almost as it had on its last day of business.
At one time, Venus had a baseball field, dance hall, livery stable, two churches, and a school in addition to two stores. After the post office closed, the entire town began a slow but inevitable march toward oblivion.
This is Venus' school building. You can almost imagine the lines of children shuffling in for classes and playing on the swings that used to sit in the yard.
The town's Wesleyan church almost looks like it could be brought back to life with a few coats of paint and some TLC.
There are still signs of life in this ghost town. A combine is sheltered in this old store, which has been turned into a sort of storage shed. As is the case with most of Nebraska's ghost towns, there are still people living, working, and farming nearby.
The old general store finally gave in to the elements and collapsed several years ago. There will no more exploring there, and no more snapping pictures of the sad, abandoned interior.
When we think of ghost towns, many of us picture the gold rush towns of the west: abandoned in a hurry, left exactly as they were standing with belongings still in them. The hundreds of ghost towns all around Nebraska - those which you can see and those which have altogether vanished - declined much more slowly. Places like Venus remind us that, even after the people have left a town, there is still so much beauty to be seen.
Special thanks to Micheal Peterson for giving us permission to share his photos of Venus.
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