When people in Omaha hear the words “Fort Calhoun,” images of nuclear power — and perhaps thoughts of nuclear catastrophe — come to mind. But that’s never been the way people in Fort Calhoun identify their town.

The Missouri River hamlet can trace its roots to Lewis and Clark days and to historic Fort Atkinson, an 1820s outpost just east of town. Fort Calhoun embraces that heritage with murals on main street and its high school’s Pioneers nickname.

However, there’s no doubt the town’s future changed forever in October 1965. That’s when OPPD’s managers selected a 382-acre site along the river five miles north of town for its first foray into the atomic age.

The plan quickly became the talk of the town. “You can’t spend that amount of money without the town getting some good from it,” the local postmaster said then.

The plant along U.S. 75 is actually slightly closer to Blair, the much larger county seat, than to Fort Calhoun. But OPPD would name the facility Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station, said to have come about because one of OPPD’s board members hailed from Fort Calhoun. The town also sat between the plant and Omaha, the city some 35 miles to the south where most of the workers would come to reside.