Valentine, Nebraska, Sandhills Capital

Valentine calls itself the heart of the Sandhills, and the geography earns the claim. It sits in Cherry County, the largest county by area in Nebraska, a sweeping landscape of grass-covered sand dunes, clear-water lakes, and spring-fed rivers that is one of the great cattle-ranching regions of North America. The county is named for Lieutenant Samuel Cherry, a cavalry officer killed in South Dakota in eighteen eighty-one.

Valentine itself was founded in eighteen eighty-two as a railroad town and became the supply hub for ranchers across an enormous territory. Early homesteaders tried farming the Sandhills and mostly failed; the land is suited to grass and cattle, not row crops. The Niobrara River, which passes near town, is famous today for canoeing through canyon country and is a national scenic river.