Northeast Nebraska Region

Antelope County at a Glance

Antelope County, Nebraska — about 860 square miles of Elkhorn valley farmland and rolling prairie in the north-east of the state. County seat Neligh, home of the 1873 Neligh Mill, the only nineteenth-century Nebraska flour mill with its original machinery intact. 473 listings across 8 towns.

Getting there: US-275 runs the length of the county through Neligh, Oakdale, Tilden and Clearwater; NE-14 crosses north to south at Neligh; NE-45 serves Elgin.

For visitors: Ashfall Fossil Beds near Royal, where twelve-million-year-old rhinos lie where they died, open May to mid-October. Grove Lake WMA, with two miles of spring-fed trout water that never freezes. The Cowboy Trail through four county towns.

Antelope County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Boone County at a Glance

Boone County, Nebraska — about 687 square miles of rolling east-central farmland drained by Beaver Creek and the Cedar River, created in 1871 and named for Daniel Boone. County seat Albion. 120 listings across 8 towns.

Getting there: US-30 lies south; NE-14 runs north to south through Albion; NE-39 and NE-91 cross the county.

For visitors: the Olson Nature Preserve, 112 acres of oak escarpment and wetland on Beaver Creek north of Albion, and the accessible concrete loops of the Boone County Trails System. Albion’s 46-site campground has showers open year round. Be aware there is no public fishing lake in the county.

Boone County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Burt County at a Glance

Burt County, Nebraska — created 23 November 1854, one of Nebraska’s eight original territorial counties, and named for Francis Burt, the first governor of Nebraska Territory, who died within days of taking the oath. County seat Tekamah, whose Beaux-Arts courthouse of 1916–17 carries a floor mosaic of the Seal of Nebraska and murals commemorating county service. The county reached its population peak of 13,062 in 1930 and stands at 6,722 today. 14 National Register listings — the most of any county in this part of the state. 132 listings across 5 towns.

Getting there: US-75 runs the length of the county through Tekamah and Decatur, and this stretch is the designated Lewis and Clark Scenic Byway; US-77 passes through Oakland; NE-32 ends at US-75 in Tekamah; and NE-51 ends at the Burt County Missouri River Bridge at Decatur, becoming Iowa Highway 175 on the far bank. Central Time.

For visitors: two landscapes in one county — the wide, fertile Missouri River bottoms on the east, and the rolling loess uplands west of the bluff line, Nebraska’s answer to Iowa’s Loess Hills across the river. Summit Lake State Recreation Area, 190 acres of water three miles west of Tekamah, is the county’s outdoor centre; Pelican Point SRA is its Missouri River launch. The Swedish Heritage Center at Oakland is a nationally recognised museum, and the Center for Rural Affairs — a nationally known rural policy nonprofit — has been headquartered in Lyons, population 824, since 2004. The Burt County Fair has been held at Oakland since 1913.

Lewis and Clark passed the length of this county in early August 1804. On 8 August they found enormous flocks of American white pelicans on the sandbars — Lewis wrote of feathers floating down the river spread over sixty or seventy yards for several miles, and Patrick Gass recorded that the pouch beneath one bird’s bill held five gallons of water. Pelican Point takes its name from that encounter, though the expedition’s camp that night was on the far bank.

Born here: Hoot Gibson, the rodeo champion turned silent-era cowboy star and second only to Tom Mix as a Western box-office draw, was born at Tekamah in 1892. Jon Kyl, United States Senator for Arizona and Senate Minority Whip, was born at Oakland in 1942. Also Tekamah-born: Don Stenberg, Nebraska Attorney General and State Treasurer, and Robert C. Holland, Governor of the Federal Reserve Board.

Burt County · Northeast · Highway 75 Corridor · Explore Nebraska

Cedar County at a Glance

Cedar County, Nebraska — about 740 square miles of north-east farmland running up to the Missouri River bluffs, settled by German and Luxembourger Catholic families whose parish churches still mark every village. County seat Hartington. 280 listings across 17 towns.

Getting there: NE-12, the Outlaw Trail Scenic Byway, crosses the north through Wynot; US-20 runs along the south through Randolph and Laurel; NE-15 and NE-57 cross north to south.

For visitors: the Corps of Engineers campgrounds below Gavins Point Dam — Cottonwood and Nebraska Tailwaters, both in Cedar County despite Yankton addresses — with the Missouri tailwater fishery below them. The Saints Peter and Paul Church Complex at Bow Valley, on the National Register. Chalkrock Lake for quiet fishing.

Cedar County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Cuming County at a Glance

Cuming County, Nebraska — about 573 square miles of Elkhorn valley and Logan Creek farmland in the north-east, settled largely by German families from the 1850s. County seat West Point, founded 1857. 153 listings across 4 towns.

Getting there: US-275 runs the length of the county through West Point, Beemer and Wisner; NE-9, NE-15, NE-16, NE-32 and NE-51 serve the rest.

For visitors: the Elkhorn River and Logan Creek water trails — float between the West Point and Wisner river parks and camp at either end. Neligh Park at West Point has 50-amp pads with water at every site and a dump station. The John G. Neihardt State Historic Site at Bancroft preserves the study where Black Elk Speaks was written.

Cuming County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Dixon County at a Glance

Dixon County, Nebraska — about 476 square miles in the extreme north-east corner, where high wooded bluffs stand above the Missouri River. County seat Ponca, platted in 1856 and named for the Ponca people. 142 listings across 10 towns.

Getting there: NE-12, the eastern end of the Outlaw Trail Scenic Byway, begins at Ponca; US-20 crosses the south of the county; NE-9 and NE-15 run north to south.

For visitors: Ponca State Park — 2,100 acres of bluff country with twenty-two miles of trail, twenty-seven cabins, ninety-odd electric campsites and a Three State Overlook taking in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. Two NRD lakes near Newcastle for fishing, and Elk Point Bend for pheasants.

Dixon County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Knox County at a Glance

Knox County, Nebraska — about 1,140 square miles along the Missouri River in the far north-east, where the Niobrara joins one of the last free-flowing reaches of the Missouri. County seat Center, so named because it sat in the middle of a forty-year county-seat argument. 538 listings across 16 towns.

Getting there: NE-12, the Outlaw Trail Scenic Byway, runs the length of the county through Niobrara and Crofton; NE-13 and NE-14 cross north to south; US-20 lies just south.

For visitors: Lewis and Clark State Recreation Area, Nebraska’s second-largest reservoir, with over 250 campsites and ten cabins; Niobrara State Park above the confluence, with nineteen cabins and fourteen miles of trail; Verdigre’s Czech heritage; and the Santee Sioux Reservation in the north-east.

Knox County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Madison County at a Glance

Madison County, Nebraska — about 573 square miles of Elkhorn valley farmland, and the commercial centre of north-east Nebraska. County seat Madison; Norfolk, founded in 1866 at the north fork of the Elkhorn, is the regional city. 486 listings across 6 towns.

Getting there: US-275 and US-81 cross at Norfolk; NE-24, NE-32 and NE-121 serve the rest of the county. Norfolk is the eastern terminus of the Cowboy Trail.

For visitors: the Cowboy Trail railhead at Ta-Ha-Zouka Park, where the campground, the water and the trail are all in one place; Skyview Lake with its accessible fishing pier; and the fullest range of services between Sioux City and Grand Island.

Madison County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Pierce County at a Glance

Pierce County, Nebraska — 575 square miles of rolling farmland in the northeast of the state, drained by the North Fork of the Elkhorn. County seat Pierce; 8 communities and 210 listings in all. Named for President Franklin Pierce and organised in 1870, it is one of the few Nebraska counties never to have had a county-seat fight.

Getting there: US-20 crosses the north of the county through Plainview and Osmond; NE-13 runs north to south linking Pierce with Norfolk; NE-98 meets them at the county seat.

For visitors: Willow Creek State Recreation Area outside Pierce — a 700-acre reservoir with electric and equestrian camping, seven fishing jetties, a swimming beach and eight miles of limestone trail. Plainview is the Klown Kapital, with a June festival and a museum of 4,500 klown dolls.

Pierce County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras · NDOT county highway map (PDF) →

Stanton County at a Glance

Stanton County, Nebraska — about 430 square miles of Elkhorn valley farmland east of Norfolk, created in 1855 as Izard County and renamed in 1862. County seat Stanton. 76 listings across 3 towns.

Getting there: US-275 crosses the county through Stanton and Pilger; NE-15 and NE-57 run north to south.

For visitors: Maskenthine Lake Recreation Area — a 98-acre reservoir with 33 electric camper pads, an on-site dump station, a twenty-acre arboretum, equestrian and disc golf trails and an accessible fishing pier. It is in Stanton County, not Madison, whatever the listings say. Pilger rebuilt itself after the twin EF4 tornadoes of June 2014.

Stanton County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Dakota County at a Glance

Dakota County, Nebraska — the small, densely settled county in the state’s north-east corner where the Missouri River turns, and the eastern end of US-20 in Nebraska. County seat Dakota City; South Sioux City is much the larger place, facing Sioux City, Iowa across the river. 184 listings across 7 towns.

Getting there: US-20, US-77 and I-129 all meet here; the Missouri River bridges cross into Iowa and South Dakota.

For visitors: the Missouri River frontage at South Sioux City, with riverfront trails and parks looking across to Sioux City. This is the metropolitan end of the corridor — full services, and the natural first or last stop on a US-20 journey across Nebraska.

Dakota County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Colfax County at a Glance

Colfax County, Nebraska — carved out of Platte County in 1869 and named for Schuyler Colfax, Grant’s vice president. County seat Schuyler, which began as Shell Creek Station on the Union Pacific and spent 1870 as a Texas cattle-loading town. Strong Czech heritage through the county. 136 listings across 6 towns.

Getting there: US-30 runs east and west through Schuyler along the Platte; NE-15 and NE-91 cross north to south.

For visitors: Maple Creek Recreation Area near Leigh — a 160-acre reservoir with 50-amp camping, a dump station, showers, a swimming beach and a 2.36-mile trail. ⚠️ Check for blue-green algae alerts before planning a swim; the beach has closed in several recent summers.

Colfax County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Nance County at a Glance

Nance County, Nebraska — this land was the Pawnee Reservation until 1876, and the county was created from it in 1879, named for Albinus Nance, then governor. County seat Fullerton, where the Cedar River joins the Loup. 67 listings across 3 towns.

Getting there: NE-22, NE-14 and NE-39 cross the county; US-30 runs along the Platte a few miles south.

For visitors: Headworks Park west of Genoa, free Loup Power District camping with 20/30-amp hookups and a sandy beach — but no dump station; Genoa City Park has one. Genoa was the site of the Pawnee Indian Industrial School, one of the largest federal off-reservation boarding schools, running from 1884 to 1934 and now interpreted by a museum in the town.

Nance County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Platte County at a Glance

Platte County, Nebraska — where the Loup meets the Platte, and the commercial centre of east-central Nebraska. County seat Columbus, founded 1856 by a Columbus, Ohio company and once seriously proposed as the site of the United States capital, on the argument that it sat near the geographic centre of the country. 292 listings across 10 towns.

Getting there: US-30 and US-81 cross at Columbus; NE-15, NE-22 and NE-91 serve the rest of the county.

For visitors: the Loup Power District parks at Lake North and Lake Babcock — free camping with electrical hookups, two boat ramps and the paved Two Lakes Trail, open May to November. Note that none of the Loup parks has a dump station or water hookups, and that Lake Babcock is a designated refuge where hunting is prohibited.

Platte County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Thurston County at a Glance

Thurston County, Nebraska — one of very few counties in the United States lying entirely within tribal land. It contains the Omaha Reservation, seated at Macy, and the Winnebago Reservation, seated at Winnebago. County seat Pender. 108 listings across 6 towns.

Getting there: US-77 runs north and south the length of the county; NE-16 and NE-94 cross it. The Missouri River forms the eastern boundary.

For visitors: the tribal powwows — the Omaha Tribe’s Hethu’shka in August is among the oldest continuously held in North America, and the Winnebago Tribe holds its own in July. Both are public; follow the posted etiquette. Note there is no state park, no state recreation area and no state-listed public fishing water in the county — the land is tribal, and access runs through the tribes.

Thurston County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras

Wayne County at a Glance

Wayne County, Nebraska — Logan Creek farm country in the north-east, and home of Wayne State College, which gives the county seat more going on than its size suggests. County seat Wayne. 152 listings across 6 towns.

Getting there: US-35 runs north-east to south-west through Wayne; NE-15 and NE-57 cross the county; US-20 lies a few miles north.

For visitors: two municipal campgrounds at Wayne — Victor Park and Lions Camper Park, both with electric hookups and a dump station on site, which makes the town a practical overnight stop in a county with very little public ground. The college drives a summer events calendar that draws from across the region.

Wayne County · Northeast Nebraska · County Cameras