Sholes is a village in Wayne County, in northeastern Nebraska, and one of the smallest incorporated places in the state. It was established to provide a shipping point for the northwest portion of the county. Cattle feeders in that corner of Wayne County asked the railroad company for a siding and yards so they could ship livestock, and Lyman Sholes, a railroad division superintendent, selected the location, hired an engineer and had the site surveyed for a side track. The village carries his name.
Sources disagree about the year. Wayne County dates the town to 1902, while other accounts say 1886, when the railroad was extended to that point. What both agree on is the post office: it was established at Sholes in 1902 and remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1965.
The village covers about a seventh of a square mile. The census counted 24 residents in 2000, 21 in 2010 and 15 in 2020. Sholes sits in the row crop and livestock country that gave the siding its reason to exist, among the villages of Carroll, Hoskins and Winside and the city of Wayne that make up the rest of the county.
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With only 15 residents as of the 2020 Census, Sholes is among the smallest incorporated villages in Nebraska — a genuine, still-legally-recognized municipality rather than a ghost town, but one worth presenting honestly as an extremely small remnant of its railroad-era origins.
Navigate & Explore Sholes
Get directions: search "Sholes Nebraska" in Waze or Google Maps
Road Conditions: Nebraska 511 — 511.nebraska.gov
Wayne County County Cameras: View Wayne County County cameras