Fort Kearny - Depiction in Fiction

Depiction in Fiction

In the novel Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, a train in the process of being hijacked by Sioux stops at Fort Kearny to request aid from the troops there. Such an event is somewhat of an anachronism, given that the conflicts with Native Americans had largely shifted away from the area by the time of the completion of the railroad.

Fort Kearny also appears in the short-lived television western drama series "The Loner" (1965) starring actor Lloyd Bridges. The series, created and written by Rod Serling of "The Twilight Zone" fame, takes place in the late 1860s and features the fort in an episode titled "Westward the Shoemaker". The "Westward..." episode concerns an Eastern European Jewish immigrant who seeks a new life in Nebraska Territory as a bootmaker but runs afoul of a card shark.

The Fort is also referenced in the HBO television series Deadwood in episode 5 of the first series as the closest place to find smallpox vaccine.