You’ve driven under it — everyone has. The Archway spans all lanes of I-80 at Kearney’s Exit 275, and most people keep driving. Don’t. Inside is a genuinely good museum of the Great Platte River Road: the Oregon Trail, the Pony Express horse exchange, Mark Twain’s stagecoach ride, the driving of the Golden Spike, and the Lincoln Highway, told through life-size dioramas with personal audio wands.
The concept is the point. This exact corridor carried everything — wagons, stagecoaches, rails, then the interstate — and the Archway is built where they all overlap. The outdoor campus has a sod house, hike-and-bike trails, a fishing lake, and a Nebraska visitor center.
Open year-round with reduced winter hours; summer is daily. Budget 90 minutes to two hours. It’s the rare interstate attraction that’s actually worth the exit — True West Magazine has called it the country’s top Western museum.