This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as infotainment. Don’t freak out.

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Is there anything wrong with being called the drunkest city in Nebraska?

Here’s what’s interesting about Nebraska: The Cornhusker State drinks the 10th most alcohol each year in the nation. Residents average something like 30 beers a year each.

Hey we’re not judging. It sounds like you guys are having a blast.

Did you know Nebraska is 4th in the U.S. for number of DUI arrests each year?

Okay, we’re judging that. That’s just plain stupid.

How do you decide how much a city within a state drinks? By the number of available places to buy booze, and by how often people are talking about drinking, that’s how.

Plus, we thought why not add in a stereotype? Studies have indicated that when one or both partners in a marriage are alcoholics, that couple is three times more likely to divorce.

Nebraska’s divorce rate is just about the lowest of all U.S. states, by the way.

After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list as The Drunkest Places in Nebraska:

Ogalalla Lincoln Plattsmouth Chadron Omaha Gretna Sidney Gering North Platte Beatrice

Read on below to see how your city might have fared.


What drunken criteria did we use?

Number of bars and pubs per capita

Number of wineries per capita

Number of liquor stores per capita

Each city’s drunk related tweets within the last week

Each city’s divorce rate

For geo-located tweets, we measured the following raw number of tweets that came from within a city’s general area: #Drunk, #Party, #Beer, #Wine and #Cocktails

Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a city’s border, as well as within a short driving distance.


1. Ogalalla

The Underpass Bar, Ogallala, NE

Population: 4,685

Divorce rate: 14%

Bars per capita: 1st

Liquor stores per capita: 5th

Believe it or don’t, but the small town of Ogallala is the drunkest city in the state of Nebraska, when you look at the numbers.

Ogallala has about 5 bars in a town of less than 5,000 people. That’s a ton of booze per capita. And there are quite a few places to get liquor, too.

And, the divorce rate is the 3rd highest in the nation here. Sounds like all of the drinking opportunities are really starting to impact relationships.

2. Lincoln

The gang at Rosie’s Sports Bar & Grill, Lincoln, NE. From their Facebook page

Population: 259,303

Divorce rate: 11.1%

Bars per capita: 7th

Liquor stores per capita: 19th

There are a ton of bars you can stumble into along P Street in downtown Lincoln. In fact, it’s pretty clear that lots of people do just that.

Colleges.com gave Lincoln an “A” for its party scene, and many students commented that the house parties here are ‘dirty.’ Apparently throwing a party in a beat up house in the North Bottoms (aka ‘the bottoms’) is a bad idea if you’re trying to impress a female.

In any case, beyond the high number of bars and pubs serving booze, there is a really high divorce rate for a college town. Meaning heavy drinking among the adults, too.

3. Plattsmouth

DC’s Watering Hole, Plattsmouth, NE.

Population: 6,518

Divorce rate: 13%

Bars per capita: 6th

Liquor stores per capita: 5th

You can tell where the priorities are in little ole’ Plattsmouth. They have just about as many bars here as they do in Ogallala.

And, holy matrimony, Plattsmouth. Your divorce rate is through the roof! No word on whether the number of newly single Nebraskans are the reason there are so many bar stools here, or the number of bars helped wreck marriages.

In any event, you can bet there are lots of interesting moments in this small town just south of Omaha.

4. Chadron

Wrecker’s Roadhouse, Chadron, NE

Population: 5,846

Divorce rate: 11.2%

Bars per capita: 7th

Liquor stores per capita: 2nd

What else is there to do in Chadron for most of the year? This tiny place way up near South Dakota has plenty of booze in town, and it looks like residents here take full advantage of it, too.

For such a small place, there were quite a few drunk Tweets coming from the Chadron area. This one is a gem:

“Walkin drunk across chadron by yourself – it’s rather relaxing and you meet cool people.”

We bet you did. Most we’re probably buzzed like you, random Tweeter.

5. Omaha

Redneck’s Omaha. From their Facebook page

Population: 412,689

Divorce rate: 11.8%

Bars per capita: 2nd

Liquor stores per capita: 19th

You might be surprised to hear that there are more drunks per capita in these smaller towns. Sure, we’re aware that the kids in college get hammered just about any night of the week.

But remember, we’re talking about number of drinkers per population, and the fact is, there are lots of people in Omaha who would rather sit at home and watch the corn grow than hit the bar scene.

The divorce rate is really high for a large city. More than 1 in 10 people in Omaha has decided that marriage is no longer in the cards. Which means lots more heavy drinking.

UNO got a ‘B’ for its party scene. People say the parties there ‘suck’ and they would rather go to Lincoln to get drunk.

Omaha beats Lincoln for drunk Tweets. There are lots of people talking about drunk drivers and passing out at people’s homes.

We also read about a drunk woman who had her hand bitten off at the Omaha Zoo when she tried to pet a tiger.

6. Gretna

Brag N Rights, Gretna, NE

Population: 4,807

Divorce rate: 9.7%

Bars per capita: 4th

Liquor stores per capita: 7th

Hey now, Gretna. All that money must be burning a hole in your pocket, huh?

Gretna is the wealthiest city in the state of Nebraska. Families here earn nearly $80,000 apiece. So there’s a lot of disposable income laying around. And in Nebraska, things can get boring pretty quickly.

The divorce rate here is just about as low as you’ll see for a town with lots of bars. Perhaps having a big bank account makes it easier to forgive him when he stumbles home every now and again.

7. Sidney

Silver Dollar Bar & Grill, Sidney, NE

Population: 6,768

Divorce rate: 11.2%

Bars per capita: 8th

Liquor stores per capita: 11th

A quick glance of the city of Sidney’s events calendar has determined that most of the big time events here involve alcohol. If you attended the city’s Cheyenne County Fair & Rodeo, Gold Rush Days and Oktoberfest, you’d most likely see lots of drinking going on.

For a town of just about 6,000 people, having 5 bars is quite the number.

Sidney is along I-80 on the western side of the state. But we’re pretty sure Sidney residents have all of the back roads memorized.

8. Gering

Oregon Trail Saloon, Gering, NE

Population: 8,431

Divorce rate: 10.6%

Bars per capita: 9th

Liquor stores per capita: 4th

Gering has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state, which might inversely be proportional to the number of available liquor bottles in town. And 1 in 10 people is divorced, indicating a higher than normal consumption pattern.

This small city is just outside of Scottsbluff.

9. North Platte

The gang at The Platte Bar, North Platte, NE. From their Facebook page

Population: 24,945

Divorce rate: 13.5%

Bars per capita: 11th

Liquor stores per capita: 3rd

There aren’t too many other places in the state of Nebraska where you’ll find a higher concentration of divorced people and bottles of whiskey than in North Platte. Cheer up, North Platte divorcees, at least you’ll have lots of company if you peel yourself off the couch and head into town for a cold one.

There are quite a few bars here, but apparently people here get hammered in all sorts of places.

“great time with friends in north platte, NE last night. never been so drunk at an Applebee’s in my life”

10. Beatrice

Kabo, Beatrice, NE

Population: 12,446

Divorce rate: 14.5%

Bars per capita: 14th

Liquor stores per capita: 9th

If you look at a map of Beatrice, there are lots of bars downtown, and strategically, there’s a at least one bar in every direction on the fringes of town.

Most likely, that’s where the husbands have been going to get away from the ole’ ball and chain. If they keep it up, that divorce rate is gonna be tops in the state. As it stands, 1 in 7 people here has already headed for the Big D.

And we don’t mean Dallas.

There You Have It

If you’re measuring the locations in Nebraska where there are a high number of divorced people, bars and liquor stores, and where people are talking about drinking the most often, this is an accurate list.

We also wrote about the most redneck cities in Nebraska if you didn’t read it yet. Click here to read that one.

Desktop users: Here’s a complete chart with the drunkest cities in Nebraska, along with their divorce rates:

City Divorce Rate Rank ogallala 14.02% 1 lincoln 11.14% 2 plattsmouth 13.09% 3 chadron 11.19% 4 omaha 11.80% 5 gretna 9.69% 6 sidney 11.27% 7 gering 10.61% 8 north platte 13.58% 9 Beatrice 14.51% 10 columbus 13.15% 11 wahoo 11.01% 12 scottsbluff 15.28% 13 nebraska city 10.63% 14 falls city 13.00% 15 grand island 12.05% 16 york 10.56% 17 holdrege 10.84% 18 south sioux city 11.32% 19 la vista 13.27% 20 kearney 10.22% 21 fremont 11.12% 22 alliance 11.43% 23 lexington 11.04% 24 papillion 8.12% 25 norfolk 10.94% 26 aurora 10.17% 27 wayne 9.32% 27 ralston 13.58% 29 hastings 10.17% 30 bellevue 10.43% 31 seward 5.82% 32 schuyler 7.64% 33 crete 8.84% 34 blair 8.38% 35 chalco 10.19% 36 mccook 9.58% 37

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