Ponca

Being named county seat in 1858 did not end the argument. Rival towns held off a courthouse for years, and the county voted on moving its seat in 1875, 1884 and 1920. The two-story red-brick courthouse went up in 1883 and 1884. In January 1939 the county signed with the Works Projects Administration for a three-story Art Deco addition by Lincoln architect J. F. Reynolds, the only such addition in the state. Petitions that year sought moves to Martinsburg and Allen, and the board rejected both. The addition's completion in 1940 ended the county seat wars.

What the plaque says

Ponca Ponca, one of northeast Nebraska's earliest com- munities, was platted in 1856 by Frank West and laid out by Dr. Solomon B. Stough. The town was named for the Ponca Indian tribe that inhabited the area when the first white settlers arrived. The location provided an abundant supply of wood and water. Originally part of Dakota County, Ponca was named as the seat of government when Dixon County was organized by the Territorial Legislature in 1858. The first county business was conducted in the Frank Ricker and Brothers general store. Water power from the Aowa Creek basin contributed sig- nificantly to the early growth of the community, which boasted flour and saw mills by 1861. Develop- ment slowed during the Civil War and the grasshopper plagues of the 1870's. The 1876 completion of the Covington, Columbus and Black Hills Railroad, the county's first, marked the beginning of a new era of economic growth. During the 1890's Ponca sported one of the finest one-mile thoroughbred racetracks in the Midwest. In 1934 the Civilian Conservation Corps began the development of the original 220-acre site of Ponca State Park on the banks of the Missouri River. This park has become one of Nebraska's finest outdoor recreation areas. Ponca Commercial Club Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ponca State Park — 2.2 mi
  Oak ravines and bluffs at the downstream end of the Missouri's last unchannelized reach in Nebraska, with a three-state overlook and the river's resource and education center.
• National Music Museum — 19 mi
  One of the great collections of musical instruments in the world, on a college campus in a prairie town, built around a band teacher's thousands of horns, fiddles and curiosities.
• Spirit Mound Historic Prairie — 25 mi
  A lone hill north of Vermillion that Lewis and Clark walked to on a scorching day in 1804, now one of the few places left where you can stand exactly where they stood.

More markers nearby

• Grasshopper Cross — 7.3 mi
• First Flour Mill in Dakota — 7.9 mi
• St. Peter's Church Jefferson — 8.0 mi
• Grasshopper Cross — 8.0 mi