Omaha Exploration

Along the Historic Lincoln Highway in Grand Island are the remnants of a tourist camp called Shady Bend. All that remains of the camp is a cafe that goes by the same name and a single cabin. Horace (Doc) Woodward got the idea of opening a camp after traveling to Arizona where he was unable to find suitable accommodations. 

Doc moved to Grand Island in 1906 where he was the foreman of the Union Stockyards in town. From there he became its general manager before purchasing the company. In the 1920s he took that fateful road trip to Arizona with his family.

Grand Island was the perfect location for such a camp as it was located along the Lincoln Highway which was the main thoroughfare across Nebraska at the time. He selected a site just east of town at a bend in the highway that was covered with cottonwood trees. That location inspired its name: Shady Bend.

In 1929 he constructed the main building which was the Shady Bend Service Station, Grocery and Diner. Doc proceeded to build 33 cabins along with a trap shooting range and trailer camp. The cabins were equipped with kitchens, bathrooms and enclosed garages. The stucco buildings were representative of buildings in the southwestern party of the country perhaps inspired by that trip to Arizona. 

Doc later constructed tennis courts after learning local players needed a place to play. He also raised a herd of 35 bison as a personal hobby and in 1932 decided to use them as a roadside attraction to draw motorists to his camp. The buffalo were allowed to roam freely between two pastures using a tunnel beneath the Lincoln Highway. As the camp evolved it included an air conditioned cafe, service station, tavern, public restrooms, lake and a park. 

The camp advertised as “The Tourist’s Haven” was popular with both tourists and local farmers living in and around Grand Island. It would become a social center of sorts where people would often leave messages for one another. On a side note, Doc also donated land for the first airport in Grand Island. 

The third son of Doc and Carrie Woodward was Fritz. He worked at the camp from 1929 to 1942. After that he served in the US Army Air Corp during World War II. When he returned in 1945 he went back to work at the camp. After Doc passed away Fritz took over. Around 1955 the first of the cabins were sold and moved offsite. Today just one remains on site. 

Its popularity greatly diminished by the 1960s when Interstate 80 replaced the old Lincoln Highway as the preferred route to travel across the state. The camp closed in 1977 though the main building remained in operation as a place where locals could eat, drink, meet friends and catch up on current events. Fritz worked at Shady Bend until he retired in 1983.

Fritz passed away in 2001 and while Shady Bend remained in the family, it alternated between being rented or vacant until 2005. Craig Woodward was the third generation of the family to take ownership. His vision was to restore the main building to its original state as much as possible and make it a place for people traveling the historic highway to once again stop and visit as a tourist attraction. He worked to get it added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. He also went to work restoring the building by replacing the electrical, plumbing and the kitchen. After the work was finished in 2011 Craig and his wife opened Doc and Fritz’s Shady Bend restaurant which primarily served Italian cuisine.

In 2017 Debbie Bontz bought it and made it her own by opening a “down home and cozy” cafe that is divided into four rooms with a capacity of 71. When it reopened, former customers returned with pictures of the building and the camp from its previous life decades earlier. Today the cafe is popular for its consistency and from-scratch cooking. It’s well known for its standard breakfast fare as well as its hot beef sandwiches, chicken fried steak and other items. 

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