Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Devils Nest lay in Knox County, near Crofton in northeast Nebraska, and was meant to anchor a large luxury development with a 25-story hotel and fine homes. It opened in 1972 on a 350-foot vertical, with at least one chairlift, the first in Nebraska, and a Poma lift.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayRusting cables and decaying chairs remain among the cottonwoods and evergreens. (2016)1,2
Timeline
4 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Devil's Nest, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Devil's Nest
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Opened 1963 · 10 mi away · South DakotaA small ski hill on the north shore of Lewis and Clark Lake, six miles west of Yankton, run in the mid-1960s.
- Opened 1982 · 110.9 mi away · IowaA small ski area on old Iowa 3 just east of Cherokee, with 145 feet of vertical, recorded from 1982 to 1992.
- 1980–1996 · 141.7 mi away · NebraskaA small chairlift ski area by Interstate 80 near Gretna, between Omaha and Lincoln, open from 1980 as Trail Ridge and later as NebraSki until 1996.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Devils Nest lay in Knox County, near Crofton in northeast Nebraska, and was meant to anchor a large luxury development with a 25-story hotel and fine homes. It opened in 1972 on a 350-foot vertical, with at least one chairlift, the first in Nebraska, and a Poma lift. Skiers came from as far as Omaha and Lincoln to its dozen slopes, and by then eight houses, an equestrian center and a yacht club had been built.1,2
It lasted two seasons. Around 1974 the state dissolved the Devils Nest Development Co. for unpaid corporate occupation taxes; the developers blamed slow lot sales and a weakening economy. The area did not open for the 1974–75 winter, banks foreclosed in 1975, and the property was auctioned in 1977 to satisfy judgments.1,2
TodayRusting cables and decaying chairs remain among the cottonwoods and evergreens. (2016)1,2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Lost Ski Areas of Nebraska
- 2Deserted Places · The abandoned Devils Nest ski resort in Nebraska (Deserted Places, March 21, 2016)
Photos
No photographs of Devil's Nest we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Devil's Nest, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.8000° N · 97.7133° W · Nebraska
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1972–1974
Closed after the 1974 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 1all 1, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain