While visiting friends in Colorado, they asked Rosser “Ole” Herstedt to pitch against their archival. They offered their friend who had developed a reputation as an outstanding baseball player in his youth $50 if they won. While he followed through on his end of the bargain, his friends couldn’t come up with the cash so they offered him a walnut bar that had been crafted for the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming. This was during prohibition though there were rumors that it would soon be repealed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
By this time, Ole had been operating a grocery store in the small town of Paxton, NE where he was born and raised. His parents, however, owned a building in town so he calculated that a fancy walnut bar and the building would give him an advantage over the competition. The building was among the first built in town and was constructed as a hardware store for Howard Miles. Ole installed the bar at 123 N Oak St and opened Herstedt’s Bar one minute after midnight once the 21st Amendment was ratified.
Ole was a young man at 29 years old and worked long hours sometimes opening at 6 and not closing until after 1. Some days he would even play cards afterwards. He ran a good bar with the help of his mother, Hattie, and it became a popular spot with the nearby farmers and ranchers. The bar really came alive during hunting season when hunters arrived in town and would retreat back to Herstedt’s for a night of card playing and story-telling. In those days, women other than Hattie wouldn’t dare go near the place.
In 1938 Ole fell in love with big game hunting which over the course of the next 35 years would take him to every continent. His obsession would also have a profound impact on his business which he would rename as Ole’s Big Game Bar in 1949. By that time he had completely remodeled the building and began mounting and hanging the trophies from his travels around the world. Among his trophies were a moose from Canada, black bear from Alaska, red fox from England, and a python from Honduras. From the bar, he served food in addition to selling sporting goods equipment, guns, ammunition and fishing gear. On the exterior of the building which had oval windows and a glass door, he installed neon lights depicting a Cowboy and American Indian.
In 1969 Ole got his prized possession, a polar bear which he bagged from an ice floe in the Bering Strait. In total he acquired over 200 trophies that he displayed at his bar which also attracted crowds for its wild game dinners and films that were recorded during his safaris. While Ole ceased his hunting trips in 1973, he continued to operate the bar which had gained a national following as it appeared in publications across the country. It began attracting motorists driving along I-80 in addition to those attending the annual Nebraska-Colorado rivalry game. It even attracted celebrities such as heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, actor Robert Duvall, boxer Sugar Ray Robinson and many professional baseball players.
Ole was ready to retire by 1986 but failed to find a buyer at the time. His son, Corky who had helped him run the bar since 1973 wasn’t interested in taking it over. While his preference was to keep the bar in Paxton, he began making arrangements to sell his trophies to friends in South Carolina who intended to open a bar of their own. He eventually found a buyer that was determined to keep the establishment in town. I found it interesting that Louis Pribyl who once operated the Nifty Bar in Omaha handled the sale. See my page for the history of the Nifty Bar.
A Paxton native himself, Tim Holzfaster, thinks of himself primarily as a curator whose responsibility it is to pass what may be the state’s most famous bar and grill to its next owner in good condition. He even expanded the bar after purchasing the adjacent Swede’s Cafe. Ole continued to visit the bar that had become his legacy until he passed in 1996. Ole’s remains in good hands and is just as popular today with the locals as it is with hunters and passersby. It is open every day of the year except for Christmas.
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Bonus pics
Some older photos of the bar and exterior. Courtesy of Ole’s.
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