Wilsonville is a village in Furnas County in southwest Nebraska, with 75 residents at the 2020 census. It was first settled in 1872 under the name Wild Turkey, a nod to the wild turkeys then found along the creeks in that part of the county, and a post office under that name opened in April 1873.
The name changed in December 1873, in honor of L. M. and Carlos Wilson, brothers who worked in the area as merchants and stockmen. The village reached its largest recorded population, 489 people, in 1930, and has grown smaller in the decades since: 118 residents in 2000, 93 in 2010, and 75 in 2020.
The whole village covers a little more than a quarter of a square mile. Alvin Lee Marts, a Wilsonville native, was honored in the naming of the destroyer escort USS Marts, a reminder that a place this small has still sent people a long way from home.
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Wilsonville was first settled in 1872 under the name "Wild Turkey." A post office opened in April 1873, and the settlement was renamed later that year for L. M. and Carlos Wilson, brothers who were merchants and stockmen there. Notable former resident Alvin Lee Marts was honored by having the U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Marts named for him.
A small Furnas County village first settled as "Wild Turkey."