Village of Harrison

The plaque counted 360 people in 1986; the 2020 census found 239. Sioux County, 2,067 square miles with Harrison as its seat and largest village, held 1,135 people, about one for every two square miles, against 5,599 in 1910, when the Kinkaid settlers had filled it. The village bills itself as Nebraska's Top Town, the highest in the state. Dwight Griswold was born here on November 27, 1893, was governor of Nebraska from 1941 to 1947, headed the American Mission for Aid to Greece in 1947 and 1948, and sat in the U.S. Senate from 1952 to 1954.

What the plaque says

Village of Harrison A railroad camp named Summit (elev. 4876 ft.) was located on this site in 1884. When the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad reached here in 1886, an unincorporated townsite named Bowen was platted and designated the county seat of Sioux County. On June 20, 1887, the name was changed from Bowen to Harrison. The village of Harrison was incorporated on April 7, 1888. A school, county courthouse, and church were built in 1888-1889. Until a community well could be dug, water had to be hauled five miles by wagon from Sow Belly Canyon. Although the Kinkaid 640 acre Homestead Act of 1904 caused a rapid influx of settlers into Sioux County, Harrison grew more slowly, reaching its peak population of 500 in 1940. After World War II, a trend toward larger farms and ranches, mechanization, and improved transportation led to a loss of population. In its centennial year of 1986, Harrison (pop. 360) remained the only incorporated town in Sioux County and the principal educational, governmental and trade center for its citizens, many of whom were descendents of pioneer settlers. Citizens of Harrison Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Toadstool Geologic Park — 19 mi
  A pocket of badlands in the Oglala National Grassland where sandstone caps balance on clay stems, ancient tracks cross the rock, and a trail leads on to a 10,000-year-old bison bone bed.
• Agate Fossil Beds National Monument — 20 mi
  A fossil quarry on the Niobrara that also keeps the gifts Red Cloud and other Lakota and Cheyenne visitors gave the ranching family who were their friends for thirty-five years.
• Fort Robinson State Park — 21 mi
  The army post beside the Red Cloud Agency where Crazy Horse was bayoneted in 1877 and Morning Star's Northern Cheyenne broke out into the January cold of 1879.

More markers nearby

• Coffee Siding — 8.0 mi
• American Legion, Ferdinand Branstetter Post No. 1 — 11 mi
• Fighting in the Buttes — 18 mi
• The Cheyenne Outbreak — 20 mi