Grand Island <1> City (2020 pop. 53,131), seat of Hall co., S Nebr., on the Wood River near its junction with the Platte; settled 1857 on the Platte by Germans, moved 1866 to its location on the Union Pacific RR, inc. c.1872. The city is a railroad hub and a market and shipping center for an irrigated livestock, grain, corn, and dairy region. There is meatpacking, and manufactures include plastics, agricultural and transportation equipment, irrigation systems, building materials, and hides. A state veterans' home is located in Grand Island. The Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, on an island in a nearby artificial lake, was designed by Edward Durrell Stone. <1> City (2020 pop. 21,389), Erie co., NW N.Y.; org. 1852. The largest island in the Niagara River, it was originally named by the French Le Grande Île. New York purchased the island from its Native American inhabitants in 1815. In 1825, Mordecai Manual Noah, a Jewish intellectual, proposed building a town for Jewish immigrants to be called Ararat on the island, but nothing came of the scheme. In 1945, the island was proposed as the site of the "World Peace Capital" and home of the United Nations, but this plan was also rejected. In 1993, the Seneca Nation sued the state saying the land was illegally appropriated from it, but lost its case (2002) and appeal (2004), and the Supreme Court refused to hear its final appeal (2006).
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