Valley County, Nebraska

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

County Seat: Ord
Year Organized: 1871
Square Miles: 568

Court House:

125 South 15th
County Courthouse
Ord, NE 68862-0000

Etymology - Origin of County Name

NamedOrd, in honor of Gen. E.O.C. Ord, who was commander of the Army of the Platte at the time the county was organized.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Valley County derives its name from the land conditions that exist in the area. Located between the North and Middle Loup Rivers, the terrain is mostly prime valley land which lies between the higher table lands.

The boundaries of what today is Valley County were originally created by the Legislature in 1871. Two years later the Legislature adopted an act to permit the county to organize. On March 18, 1873, the county's organizational election was held. In addition to the selection of the county's first officers, voters also selected the site of the present town of Ord to serve as the county seat. At the time it was selected, however, the county seat had no name. After it was surveyed in 1874, the site was named Ord, in honor of Gen. E.O.C. Ord, who was commander of the Army of the Platte at the time the county was organized.

The first settlers in this area are said to have been two distinct groups who had traveled from Wisconsin in 1872. The first was a small party of Danes who settled on the west side of the North Loup River near the present site of Ord. The second group of settlers consisted of a colony of Seventh-Day Baptists who homesteaded farther downstream near the present day town of North Loup. Their objective was to settle on the frontier in order that they might remain undisturbed by those who observed the first day of the week as the Sabbath.

Throughout the early years there were persistent rumors that Indian raids were about to occur in the county. Gen. Ord decided to station a company of soldiers in the northern part of the county just in case. Although there were some minor skirmishes and one that resulted in the death of one of Gen. Ord's soldiers, for the most part they were just rumors.

In 1884 the settlers of Valley County were looking forward to a large yield from their crops. That quickly changed when a wave of grasshoppers covered the state and completely destroyed every living plant in its path. Losing the crops they had counted on to survive the coming winter, many of the settlers left the area, never to return.

Neighboring Counties:

Insert Counties Here

Cities and Towns:

- Arcadia	village	Incorporated Area
- Davis Creek	township
- Elyria	village	Incorporated Area
- Enterprise	township
- Eureka	township
- Independent	township
- Michigan	township
- Noble	township
- North Loup	village	Incorporated Area
- Ord (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Springdale	township
- Vinton	township
- Yale	township

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."