George Ward Holdrege (March 26, 1847 - September 14, 1926) was an American railroad officer and cattle rancher with large land holdings in western Nebraska.

An early advocate of modern agricultural practices, he experimented with irrigation, dryland farming methods, soil conservation, and crop rotation.

[3] At sixteen, Holdrege attended a private day school in Boston operated by William Parsons Atkinson, one of the original faculty members of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[4] In June 1865, he graduated from Atkinson's school and spent the summer in Cambridge preparing for his entrance to Harvard where he was a member of the University Boat Club.

[10] Dietz and Holdrege collaborated with Omaha architect Thomas Rogers Kimball to create the Dome Lake Club, high in the Big Horn Mountain range.

[11] Holdrege's rail lines began in Nebraska, worked up through the Black Hills[12] of present-day South Dakota, and into Wyoming Territory with further extensions reaching Billings, Montana.

[16] Widely known as a central figure in legislative debates at the Nebraska State Capitol, George was awarded the “Distinguished Service Medal” by the Lincoln Kiwanis Club in 1925.