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Norfolk is located in Northeast Nebraska in Madison
County in the Elkhorn River Valley, 112 miles northwest of
Omaha, 121 miles north of Lincoln and 75 miles southwest of
Sioux City, Iowa. U.S. Highways 81 and 275, and Nebraska
Highways 24 and 35 intersect in Norfolk. Norfolk is only 15
miles from Madison, Nebraska, the county seat of Madison
County, which is governed by a three-person Board of County
Commissioners. Norfolk accommodates several branch offices
for Madison County as well as a separate State Highway
Patrol Center and serves a 23-county area.
Norfolk is the economic center for an area encompassing six
counties. Basic economic activities of Norfolk are
manufacturing, farming (both livestock and grain),
education, retailing, and wholesaling. Manufacturing employs
over 4,059 persons. Norfolk is the major retail trade center
for Northeast Nebraska.
On July 17, 1866, a three-train caravan of prairie
schooners, carrying 44 German families from Ixonia and
Watertown, Wisconsin arrived at the junction of the Elkhorn
and North Fork valleys where they were attracted by the rich
land open for settlement. These pioneers were joined by
others from Wisconsin, and formed the community that later
became Norfolk.
In 1881, the Village of Norfolk was
organized. The settlers proclaimed “North Fork” to be their
permanent post office address, named after the river, but
suggested “Norfork” as the simplest compounding of “North
Fork”. Postal authorities thinking the word had been
misspelled, changed the spelling to “Norfolk”.
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