GRAND ISLAND, a city of Nebraska. U.S., near the Platte river, on the Lincoln highway, at an altitude of 1,861ft., 85m. W. of Lincoln; the county-seat of Hall county. It is served by the Burlington, the St. Joseph and Grand Island, and the Union Pacific railways, and has an airport. The population was in 1920 (87% native white), and was 18,041 in 1930 by the Fed eral census. The city lies on a slope rising from the broad bottom lands, opposite a narrow strip of land 42m. long between two channels of the Platte river ("la grande Ile" of the early French Canadian trappers). Sheep-feeding and the raising of sugar-beets are specialties of the region. The city is an important horse and mule market and has large stockyards. The output of its factories in 1927 was valued at $4,437,632. Over ' 0,000,000lb. of beet sugar are manufactured annually, and there are large packing plants, flour mills, vegetable canneries and creameries. The Union Pacific maintains extensive shops here. Grand Island is the seat of the State soldiers' and sailors' home (established 1888) and of Grand Island college (Baptist; established 1892). Settlement around here was begun in 1857. The city was laid out when the Union Pacific reached it in 1866, and was incorporated in 1873. It is in the midst of what was the great buffalo range. Buffaloes were still numerous in this region as late as 1866.