Bancroft Map
Bancroft is a village in Cuming County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 520 at the 2000 census.
John Neihardt, who later became Nebraska's poet laureate, lived in Bancroft for twenty years and wrote many of his works there. His study is preserved at the John G. Neihardt State Historic Site in the village.
The site that became Bancroft was homesteaded in the mid-1870s by Ford Bella Barber and Deborah (Watson) Barber, who came from Maine to settle in Nebraska. In 1880, when the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway began planning a line through the area, the Barbers deeded 80 acres (32 ha) of land to the railway for the platting of a town. At that time, there were about 25 residents, mostly of German, Irish, and Scandinavian extraction.
Nearby cities include Walthill, Thurston, Macy, Beemer, Oakland.