Cabela's Original Store and Wildlife Displays
805 King St, Sidney, NE
Sidney, NE
A kitchen-table fishing-fly business that grew into a wilderness of taxidermy dioramas out on the high plains of the Nebraska Panhandle.
In 1961, in the small Panhandle town of Sidney, a man named Dick Cabela placed a newspaper ad offering fishing flies by mail, ran the fledgling operation from his kitchen table, and reinvested every dollar. Together with his wife Mary and his brother Jim, he built that mail-order fly business into Cabela's, one of the largest outdoor outfitters in the country, all while keeping its roots and headquarters in Sidney.
The store that grew here is more than a place to buy gear. Cabela's became known for turning its showrooms into wildlife theaters, filled with life-size dioramas of mounted game, mountain scenes, and aquariums. In its Sidney home, that spectacle sits against the backdrop of the real high plains, where the animals on display once roamed.
What Guests Love
- Life-size dioramas of big game mounted in dramatic natural scenes
- The story of a nationwide company born at a kitchen table in Sidney
- Aquariums and wildlife displays that feel more museum than store
- A genuine slice of Panhandle history along the old Union Pacific line
Worth Knowing
- This is a working retail store as well as a display, so expect a shopping environment
- Sidney sits on Interstate 80, an easy break on a cross-state drive
- The Panhandle is dry, open country, so plan for distances between towns
- Pair it with Sidney's Fort Sidney history for a fuller stop
Details
Sidney, NE
Learn about Cabela's Original Store and Wildlife Displays
From a kitchen table to an empire
Dick Cabela got the idea after buying a supply of hand-tied fishing flies at a furniture show. His first ad, offering flies by mail, drew a trickle of orders, and he and Mary packaged them at their kitchen table in Sidney while Dick kept his day job. The key move came early, when they began mailing a catalog, which turned occasional buyers into a loyal national customer base.
Over the following decades the company grew from flies into a full line of hunting, fishing, and camping gear, and from a catalog into a chain of destination stores. Through all of it, Sidney remained the heart of the operation, a Panhandle town of a few thousand people that became the headquarters of a company known coast to coast.
A store built like a wilderness
What set Cabela's apart was theater. Rather than plain aisles of merchandise, its stores were built around enormous dioramas, mountains of mounted game arranged as if caught in mid-motion, elk bugling on a ridge, sheep on a cliff, predators frozen in a chase. Aquariums, gun libraries, and taxidermy turned a shopping trip into something closer to a natural history museum visit.
In Sidney, this spectacle carries extra weight because so many of the animals on display, or their relatives, once lived on the surrounding plains and in the nearby Rockies. Kids press against the aquarium glass and hunters study the mounts, and the whole thing works as a tribute to the outdoors the company was built to serve.
Sidney, a Panhandle railroad town
Sidney's own history runs deeper than the store. It grew up around the Union Pacific Railroad and the frontier-era Fort Sidney, which guarded the rail line and travelers in the 1860s and 1870s. In the gold-rush days it was a rough end-of-track town and a jumping-off point for miners bound for the Black Hills, with the reputation to match.
Today Sidney is a quieter ranching and railroad community on the high plains, with the old fort's officers' quarters and powder house preserved as museums. The Cabela's story is the modern chapter in a town that has long stood where the rails, the plains, and the wider West meet.
Seasons on the high plains
The high plains around Sidney are a land of big weather. Summer is warm and bright, with long views under towering thunderheads, a good time to break a cross-country drive here. Fall brings crisp air and hunting season, fitting for a town so tied to the outdoors.
Winter can be cold and windswept out on the open ground, with sudden storms rolling off the Rockies. Spring greens the grassland and brings migrating birds, and any season the indoor dioramas offer a warm, dramatic stop off the interstate.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Sidney
Fort Sidney Museum
About 1 mile
Preserved buildings of the frontier army post that once guarded the Union Pacific and Black Hills gold road.
Interstate 80 corridor
At the edge of town
The main east-west route across Nebraska, making Sidney a natural rest stop on a long drive.
Panhandle grasslands
Surrounding the town
The wide, high shortgrass plains that roll toward Colorado and Wyoming, big-sky ranching country.