Winnebago Nebraska 68071

Winnebago sits in Thurston County in northeast Nebraska and had 916 residents at the 2020 census. It lies within the Winnebago Reservation and is where the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska keeps its tribal offices. The people are the Ho-Chunk, the name they use for themselves, and the great majority of the residents of the village are tribal members or other Native people.

The tribe was removed from Minnesota in the 1860s and took refuge with the Omaha Nation, which ceded land in the northern part of its reservation; the United States granted that land to the Winnebago by treaty in 1865. The tribe governs itself through an elected council and runs education, housing, veterans and public safety programs along with its own fire crew. Ho-Chunk, Inc., the economic development corporation of the tribe, was formed in 1994 and has grown from one employee to roughly 1,400 across several states and countries; it has been recognized four times by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

The annual Homecoming Celebration began in the summer of 1866, when the community welcomed home Winnebago men who had served in the Nebraska Volunteers, and it remembers Chief Little Priest, who died of wounds from that service. Families raise their flags each morning during the celebration, which is held in July at Veterans Memorial Park. Little Priest Tribal College, chartered by the tribe, opened in 1996 and is named for him. The Angel De Cora Memorial Museum and Research Center is free to visit and works to preserve and present the history, art and accomplishments of the tribe.

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