Chester, platted in 1880 and named for President Chester A. Arthur, holds a unique claim to fame as the birthplace of six-man football, invented there in 1934 to give small Depression-era schools a viable alternative to eleven-man football — a format that spread across rural America and is still played today.

With 226 residents as of 2020, Chester remains a close-knit village that celebrates its football legacy each June at Chesterfest, making it one of Thayer County's more distinctively branded small towns.