An Electric Dream Burns Out

Preserving Kearney’s boomtown history inside an elegant Victorian home.

- Jana Bommersbach

Splendiferous. That sums up the opulence of the 1890 G.W. Frank House in Kearney, Nebraska—the showplace of a man who promoted this piece of the American prairie, betting it would one day be the Great Electric City of the Plains.

George Washington Frank didn’t see the Cornhusker State as just ranchland and farmland. He envisioned a far more expansive future, wining and dining investors in the magnificent three-story, roughly 15,000-square-foot home designed by his architect son, George William, for him and his wife, Phoebe.

Guests were entertained on the first floor, with its tapestry rugs and intricately carved wood—on ceilings, fireplaces, doorways,  stairways, wainscoting. A stained glass nymph with a bird graced the window at the top of the first floor landing.