Nemaha County: The Missouri River's Nebraska Shore

Nemaha County sits on the Missouri River's Nebraska bank and takes its name from the Nemaha River, a waterway whose name comes from an Otoe word variously translated as muddy water or miry water. The county was organized in eighteen fifty-five during Nebraska Territory's first wave of official settlement. Its county seat, Auburn, was founded during the same era.

The county's eastern edge hugs the Missouri River, the same corridor that carried Lewis and Clark northward in eighteen oh four and that brought Oregon Trail emigrants upriver by steamboat to jumping-off points throughout the eighteen fifties and sixties. Brownville, one of the oldest towns in Nebraska, lies within the county, on the river.