Senator George Norris State Historic Site

George W. Norris was born in Sandusky County, Ohio, in 1861 and came west to practice law, first at Beaver City and from 1900 in McCook. He went to Congress in 1903, and in 1910 he led the insurgent revolt that removed Speaker Joseph Cannon from the Rules Committee. In 1913 he moved to the Senate, where he served thirty years, and in 1917 he was one of only six senators to vote against declaring war on Germany.

He was a Republican who distrusted parties and voted against his own. He was the primary author of the Twentieth Amendment, the lame-duck amendment, and the man behind the Tennessee Valley Authority, which he fought for years to create; the first TVA dam carries his name. He co-wrote the Rural Electrification Act, which brought power to farms across the country. In 1934 he campaigned Nebraska into adopting a nonpartisan, one-house legislature, which first met in 1937 and is still the only one in the nation. He left the Republicans in 1936 and won as an independent, lost his seat to Kenneth Wherry in 1942, and died in McCook on September 2, 1944.

The house on Norris Avenue was his home base from 1902 until his death. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1967, and the next year his wife, Ellie, gave it and all its furnishings to the state historical society. There are no public restrooms.