Cedar County Historical Museum

19-year-old orphan, John Lammers, came from Germany in 1850. He worked as a barrel maker in Ohio where he met his first wife Susanna. They moved to Iowa where they farmed for just over 6 years. They joined other pioneer families and came to Cedar County the summer of1861. On arrival, they had four children, a yoke of oxen, a wagon, a few items of furniture, some wheat seed and thirty-two dollars. John purchased 160 acres near St. Helena and homesteaded 160 more acres. The family lived in a farm dugout. Tragedy struck when Susanna and her twins died during childbirth. John hired the sixteen-year-old neighbor girl, Mary Stratman, to help raise the five children at home. Mary, a German immigrant, later married John and went on to have fifteen children, plus three that died in infancy. This gave John a total of twenty-three children if you are keeping count. During his lifetime, John started the Lammers Ranch and become the largest cattle rancher in northeast Nebraska. John started the lumberyard in Hartington and served as president of the First National Bank.. He died the wealthiest man north of Omaha. 

John's son, Anton. was born in Cedar County and went to country schools until he came to Hartington for one year.  He attended business school in Illinois briefly and then Omaha. He returned to work in the office of his father’s Lumber yard, eventually taking over that business. Anton married Miss Clara Walz, a native of Iowa, in 1900. Their three-story Victorian style home and carriage barn was built the same year, by Henry Stuckenhoff.

 Anton and Clara had four children over their years in this home namely: Aurelia, Gertrude, Dorothy and Katheryn. 

Clara had many fruit and walnut trees around the house as well as a large strawberry patch and many grape vines. On the farm ground around the home, they raised alfalfa and other crops. In 1915, a larger dining room was added to the home as well as two additional bedrooms. The house then had a total of fifteen rooms.

In her large home, Clara did a lot of family entertaining, which she loved. With the expanded dining room, she purchased a table with six large leaves and when fully expanded, it could seat twenty-four guests for a meal.

 Most features are original to the home even some of the florals around the home. The home and carriage house were donated by the Lammers family to the Cedar County Historical Society in 1964.

The mansion was built by locally famed builder Henry Stuckenhoff. Stuckenhoff was the in-law to Anton Lammers. Stuckenhoff learned the building trade in his native Germany. He began helping Mr. Reifert with his furniture business in Hartington before venturing to St. Helena in December of 1883. He gained notoriety for the seventy black walnut tables he fashioned out of rough lumber. during the winter of that year. In March of 1884, he came back to Hartington and immediately began building his first home, the built the priest's house in Bow Valley and the livery barn for Lemon and McGregor. He remembered receiving his citizenship papers in the old Holiday Saloon building that served as an early courthouse.   In 1886, he built the jail and in the years that followed he built a dozen bridges across the Bow and Pearl Creeks. 1896, he went back to St. Helena and built the church. He returned to Hartington in 1900 and built the A. K. Lammers home, a Victorian Mansion that now serves as the Cedar County Historical Museum. In 1901 he began work on the Holy Trinity Church. He completed the church in 1902 and over the next two years built the Bow Valley Church. When the railroad moved on to Fordyce and Crofton, he built several business buildings and houses in Fordyce. In 1921, Stuckenhoff went back to Germany. Upon his return, he continued to build houses, remodeled the Spork Drug store, the upper floors on the Knights of Columbus building, the priest's home in Hartington, the Wynot church, the city library, the Steffen Drug building, the Wynot drug store, the St. James school, the Pearl Creek school, and the hotel in Coleridge. Mr. Stuckenhoff moved to Winona, Minnesota, in 1922, and for the next twelve years spent most of his time doing repair work on buildings at St. Mary's college.  At 96, Stuckenhoff was remembered as an alert and enthusiastic conversationalist, who outlived his life insurance.

The Cedar County Historical Society is on a mission to upgrade the museum that was so generously donated years ago by the children of Anton and Clara Lammers in memory of their parents. If would like to contribute to the museum or would like more information or a tour, check out the website cedarcountynehistoricalmuseum.com

, Cedar County Historical Society. Lammers Family History. January 2nd, 2020. Accessed December 11th, 2023. https://www.cedarcountynehistoricalmuseum.com/lammers-family.

, Hartington History Book Committee. Hartington 140 Year History. Hartington, Nebraska. Cedar County News, 2023.

, Centennial Book Committee. Hartington 100 year Centenial Book.

1011 News Video Feature: Victorian House Built in 1900 Preserving the History of Cedar County, published January, 2024