Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Schuyler, NE

Schuyler is a city in the Platte River valley of eastern Nebraska and the county seat of Colfax County.

Schuyler is pronounced "SKY-ler," and both the city and Colfax County are named after Schuyler Colfax, who was Vice President of the United States under Ulysses S. Grant.

The town began in 1866 as Shell Creek Station on the Union Pacific Railroad; when Colfax County was carved out of Platte County in 1869 Schuyler became its seat, and in 1870 the town was renamed Schuyler and incorporated.

In 1870 the Union Pacific chose Schuyler as the point where Texas cattle driven north were loaded onto trains, making it Nebraska's first "cow town"; about 50,000 head of cattle passed through in a single season before the trail terminus moved west to Kearney the next year.

Schuyler's early settlers were largely Czech, Irish, and German immigrants, and the community sat along a remarkable stack of historic routes: the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the transcontinental railroad, and later the coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway.

The 2020 census counted 6,547 people in Schuyler living in 1,936 households — an all-time population high for the city — with a median age of just 29.2 years.

Hispanic or Latino residents made up 72.5 percent of Schuyler's population in the 2020 census, one of the highest shares in Nebraska; the transformation began in the late 1980s as immigrants arrived for packing-plant work, later joined by newcomers from Somalia, Thailand, and elsewhere.

Schuyler's largest employer is the Cargill beef processing plant, which opened in 1968 as a Spencer Foods facility and employs roughly 2,000 people; Schuyler Community Schools is the second-largest employer.

The Oak Ballroom, completed by the Works Progress Administration in 1937 and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built with dozens of native oak trees hauled from the nearby Platte River by horses and wagons.

Since 1935, Benedictine monks of Christ the King Priory have lived in Schuyler, and their Saint Benedict Center, four miles north of the city, hosts retreats in a striking modern building overlooking the Platte valley.