Madison County, Nebraska

Madison County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Madison
Year Organized: 1856
Square Miles: 573

Court House:

1313 North Main Street

PO Box 290
County Courthouse
Madison, NE 68748-0290

Etymology - Origin of County Name

There are two accounts regarding the county's name. One is that it was named in honor of President James Madison. The second and most widely accepted is that it was named after the Wisconsin county from which the German settlers came. It is said the county seat of Madison was named either after the county or after a descendant of an early homesteader.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

A small group of German pioneers was credited with the early development of what is today Madison County. Fertile soil, sufficient water, and natural groves of timber attracted the first settlers to the area.

Madison County was created by the Territorial Legislature on Jan. 26, 1856. Eleven years later the county was officially organized and the first election conducted. The county's boundaries would be redefined in 1873.

In 1865, two years before the county was created, German pioneers Herman Braasch and Frederick Wagner came to the area in search of a location to establish a colony. They chose a site on the north fork of the Elkhorn River. The pair returned to Wisconsin and organized a group of 125 people who would settle on this new land. The group arrived by wagon in July 1866 only to find a small party of young men from Illinois had settled there in the meantime.

The Illinois men did not desire to share the area with the Germans, so they sold their 160-acre claim to Braasch for $200 and moved on. The Germans proceeded to lay out claims. Lots were determined by a random drawing to ensure equality and prevent any conflicts. The Germans, said to represent 24 families, lived in their wagons while they built log cabins before winter arrived. The settlement would eventually evolve into Norfolk, the county's largest city.

There is an interesting note regarding the city's name. When it came time to establish a post office, the name Nor'Fork was submitted since the settlement was on the north fork of the Elkhorn River. The post office department accepted the petition, but respelled the name Norfolk, presuming the petitioners had misspelled it.

Neighboring Counties:

Insert Counties Here

Cities and Towns:

- Battle Creek	city	Incorporated Area
- Hadar	village	Incorporated Area
- Madison (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Meadow Grove	village	Incorporated Area
- Newman Grove	city	Incorporated Area
- Norfolk	city	Incorporated Area
- Tilden	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."