Wahoo is the county seat of Saunders County. The town was founded in 1870 and took the seat of county government in 1873. Where the name came from is disputed: one explanation traces it to the wahoo shrub, also called burning bush, which grows along Wahoo Creek, and another to a word meaning not very bluffy. Czech, German and Scandinavian families settled the town and the country around it, and Swedish settlers founded a school here in 1883 that became Luther Junior College before merging with Midland College in Fremont.
For a town of fewer than five thousand people, Wahoo has an unusual roster of natives. The geneticist George Beadle won a Nobel Prize, Howard Hanson won a Pulitzer Prize as a composer, Sam Crawford — known as Wahoo Sam — reached the Baseball Hall of Fame, Darryl F. Zanuck produced films and helped found Twentieth Century Fox, and Clarence W. Anderson made his name illustrating books for children. David Letterman spent years calling Wahoo the home office of his Top Ten list.
Around town there is the Saunders County Museum, the county courthouse with its memorial to the submarine USS Wahoo, the Howard Hanson House, the old Burlington depot and a marker for the ox bow branch of the Mormon Trail. The city keeps six parks, a golf course, an aquatics center and a civic center with an Olympic size pool, and holds Christmas on the Prairie each year.
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Wahoo, the Saunders County seat, was established in 1870 by Czech, German, and Scandinavian settlers along Wahoo Creek, and became the county seat in 1873, replacing Ashland. Its name comes from the eastern wahoo shrub found along the creek banks, itself derived from a Dakota word meaning “arrow wood.”
Wahoo is the birthplace or hometown of an unusually accomplished list of natives, including Nobel Prize-winning geneticist George Beadle, Hall of Fame baseball player Sam Crawford, composer Howard Hanson, 20th Century Fox co-founder Darryl F. Zanuck, and Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman. With a 2020 population of 4,818, it remains the county's largest town and has been referenced for decades on David Letterman's “Late Show” Top Ten List as his fictional home office.
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Road Conditions: Nebraska 511 — 511.nebraska.gov
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