Central City is a city and the county seat of Merrick County, Nebraska, United States. It is allocation of the Grand Island, Nebraska Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,934 at the 2010 census.

The inhabitants just prior to the creation of Lone Tree (Central City) were the Pawnee. In the late 1700s, the Chaui (Cáwiiʾi) had a village upon the current location of Central City. An account that an passй Chaui man gave to Major Frank North in 1875 just about a battle that took place in the company of two divisions of the Pawnee (the Chaui, Pitahauerit, and Kitkehahki, jointly known as the Southern Pawnee, on one side; and the Skidi upon the other) in the late 1700s illustrates the political complexities of the into the future inhabitants of what would comply be Central City.

There had been considerable rivalry in the company of the Chaui and the Skidi, which eventually led to an unprovoked invasion by the Skidi upon a activity of Chaui hunting buffalo. It was estimated that 200 Chaui were killed. All were men from the Chaui village, which was near Lone Tree and where Central City is now located. The steadfast Chaui returned to their village (this was thought to have occurred during winter). The Chaui did not take they were mighty enough to hostility the Skidi, so they held councils later than two other Southern Pawnee bands and told them what happened. The Pitahauerit and Kitkehahki fixed to back the Chaui neighboring the Skidi.

The men of the three villages crossed the Platte River and made a night march to the Skidi village. Some of the men dressed as buffaloes in order to entice the Skidi out of their village to hunt buffalo. The get off of the men hid along the river and behind the ridge of sandhills next to the river. The Skidi charged in the midst of the men hiding along the river and at the rear the sandhill ridge thinking that they were chasing buffalo; the Southern Pawnees attacked them there.