The westward push of the railroad as the Civil War ended gave new birth to the community.

This marked the beginning of Kearney's role as a crossroads on major east-west transportation arteries.

In 1848, to safeguard westward migrants traveling through the region, the US Army established a military fort several miles southeast of the present city.

Named after famed frontier military officer Stephen W. Kearny, Fort Kearny would become the namesake of the present city and serve as a stopping-point for gold prospectors, Pony Express riders, and Union Pacific Railroad workers until 1871.

[8] The first permanent settlement in the area was called Dobytown, located 2 miles (3.2 km) southeast of the present-day Kearney.

The "e" in Kearney was added by mistake sometime afterwards by postmen who consistently misspelled the town name; eventually the spelling became nomenclature.

The fixing of a junction point with the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad in 1871 anticipated the establishment of a townsite in the summer of that year.

The city of Kearney was incorporated on December 3, 1873, the townsite being fixed a mille north of the Platte River.

In 1874, Kearney was chosen to be the seat of Buffalo County, experiencing great population, economic, and infrastructural expansion in subsequent years that transformed the nascent city into the local business, education, and transportation center it remains to this day.

This boom would be sustained through the next twenty-years, fueled by a post-Civil War period of frenzied economic expansion and wealth generation (Gilded Age) that was transforming the whole nation.

Enterprising investors poured into the burgeoning community from the East and elsewhere, hoping to enrich themselves through ambitious speculative development schemes that, more often than not, turned out to be ill-conceived and economically unsustainable.

An irrigation canal, electric street railway, and a five-story opera house were some of the projects to ultimately make it off the drawing board.

These flush times would grind to a sudden halt as a result of the agricultural depression and economic crisis of the early 1890s.

According to Buffalo County Economic Development,[24] the top non-manufacturing employers in the city are: The top manufacturing employers are: Kearney is home to several museums, many of which reflect its location on the California, Mormon, Oregon, and Pony Express trails, and the Lincoln Highway.

Stanley Clouse served as Mayor from 2006-2024, with Jonathan Nikkila assuming the role in December 2024.

Greyhound Bus Lines stops to pick up or discharge passengers in Kearney at 112 W. Talmadge Rd.