Banner County, Nebraska
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Banner County is a
county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...
in the western part of the U.S. state of
Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...
in the
Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...
region of the United States. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 674. Its
county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
is the unincorporated community of
Harrisburg Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...
; there are no incorporated municipalities within the county. Banner County is part of the Scottsbluff, NE Micropolitan Statistical Area. In the Nebraska
license plate A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate (British, Indian and Australian English), license plate (American English) or licence plate (Canadian English), is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for ...
system, Banner County is represented by the prefix 85 (it had the eighty-fifth largest number of vehicles registered in the county when the license plate system was established in 1922).


History

When Nebraska became a state in 1867, a single county encompassed the entire Panhandle.Nebraska Historic Buildings Survey—Banner County.
Retrieved June 22, 2010.
In 1870, the Panhandle's southern half was organized as Cheyenne County. The arrival of increasing numbers of settlers led to the partitioning of the county in 1888: the eastern third became Deuel County; the middle third became present-day Cheyenne County; and the western third became Kimball, Scotts Bluff, and Banner Counties. The last of these was named by citizens who declared it would become the state's "banner county", and "the brightest star in the constellation of Nebraska counties". Upon the county's organization, the settlement of Ashford was chosen as the temporary county seat. Four communities aspired to be chosen as the permanent county seat: Ashford,
Harrisburg Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...
, Freeport, and Banner. Two special elections proved necessary before Harrisburg was chosen. The initial settlement of the area was by cattle ranchers, drawn by good pastures in the Pumpkin Creek valley. In the late 1880s, these open-range ranchers were displaced by an influx of settlers; by 1890, almost every quarter-section (160 acres, or 65 ha) was claimed by homesteaders. However, the good moisture years that had attracted these settlers were followed by a severe drought in 1893 and 1894, which drove many of the new settlers away; the number of farms in the county declined by more than half, from 565 in 1890 to 226 in 1900. The land thus vacated was again used by ranchers, who raised both crops and cattle. The 1904 passage of the
Kinkaid Act The Kinkaid Act of 1904 (ch. 1801, , Apr. 28, 1904, ) is a United States government, U.S. statute that amended the 1862 Homestead Act so that one section (land), section (1 mi2, 2.6 km2, 640 acres) of public domain land could be acquire ...
, which allowed homesteaders to claim brought a new wave of settlers; however, even these larger tracts were often insufficient to support a family, and many of the Kinkaid claims were eventually sold to established cattle ranchers. The county's growth was hindered by the absence of railroads: the nearest lines ran through Kimball, to the south, and Gering, to the north. Roads were also slow to develop in the county: in 1921, only dirt roads existed. The difficulty of reaching markets tended to discourage commercial crop farming in the county.


Irrigation

Rainfall in Banner County is light and variable; the average yearly precipitation at the Harrisburg weather station is . Farmers responded by resorting to irrigation. The first irrigation well was drilled by the late 1920s, and others quickly followed. By the late 20th century, center-pivot irrigation systems were in use through much of the county. By 2000, the Pumpkin Creek basin had approximately 500 registered irrigation wells."Pumpkin Creek Basin (PCB) Sub-Area".


Retrieved August 31, 2010.
Groundwater pumping combined with drought conditions ended surface flow in Pumpkin Creek by 1993, and significantly reduced the valley's groundwater levels.Pope, Joanna. tp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/NE/Outgoing/News/NebraskaSuccessStories/PumpkinCreekEQIP.pdf "Conservation Takes Pressure Off Pumpkin Creek".NRCS-Nebraska. Retrieved August 31, 2010. In 2001, the North Platte Natural Resources District, which regulates water use in the watershed, declared a moratorium on the drilling of new wells, and limited existing operations to of irrigation water per year. Complicating matters, lawsuits were filed contending water use in the Pumpkin Creek valley depleted flows into Lake McConaughy and interfered with the prior water rights of downstream irrigators.


ICBMs

Beginning in the early 1960s,
intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...
s (ICBMs), based at Warren Air Force Base near
Cheyenne, Wyoming Cheyenne ( or ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Wyoming, most populous city of the U.S. state of Wyoming. It is the county seat of Laramie County, Wyoming, Laramie County, with 65,132 reside ...
, were installed in western Nebraska,
Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...
, and
Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
. From 1960 to 1963, 90
Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...
sites were constructed in Nebraska. Construction of the launch sites, and upgrading of the roads leading to them, led to an economic boom in western Nebraska. Beginning in 1963, the Atlas series was replaced by Minuteman missiles, which used solid instead of liquid fuel, and which were launched from underground silos. In the 1970s, there were 82 Minuteman III sites in the Panhandle, of which 20 were located in Banner County.


Geography

According to the
US Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...
, the county has an area of , of which is land and (0.02%) is water. Banner County lies on what was once a tableland sloping away from the
Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...
. Over geologic history, it was eroded by Pumpkin Creek and other watercourses, and much of the county now lies below the original High Plains level. The county can be divided into four major geographic divisions: the low-lying and relatively flat valley of Pumpkin Creek, which occupies about 40% of the county's area; a tableland, in places smooth and in others deeply dissected, occupying the southern one-third of the county; the Wildcat Hills, a highly dissected
escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...
that crosses the county's northwestern portion; and a small portion of the
North Platte River The North Platte River is a major tributary of the Platte River and is approximately long, counting its many curves.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 21, 2011 I ...
valley in the county's northeastern corner.


Adjacent counties

The western edge of Banner County abuts the eastern border of the state of
Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...
. * Scotts Bluff County - north * Morrill County - east * Cheyenne County - southeast * Kimball County - south *
Laramie County, Wyoming Laramie County is a county located at the southeast corner of the state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 100,512 or 17.4% of the state's total 2020 population, making it the most populous county in Wyoming, ...
- west *
Goshen County, Wyoming Goshen County (, ) is a county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 12,498. Its county seat is Torrington. The eastern boundary of the County borders the Nebraska state line. Goshen County prod ...
- northwest


Highways

* Nebraska Highway 88 – runs generally east–west, from
Bridgeport Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut and the fifth-most populous city in New England, with a population of 148,654 in 2020. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Is ...
to La Grange, Wyoming, passing north of Harrisburg * Nebraska Highway 71 – runs north–south, from Kimball to Gering, passing east of Harrisburg.


Demographics

Banner County's population peaked at 2,435 in 1890 and has since steadily declined. It is one of the least populated counties of Nebraska. As of the 2000 United States Census, there were 819 people, 311 households, and 237 families in the county. The
population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...
was . There were 375 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 95.85%
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 0.12%
Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
or
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 0.24% Native American, 0.12% Asian, 3.05% from other races, and 0.61% from two or more races. 5.62% of the population were
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or Latino of any race. 31.2% were of
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
, 14.4% English, 14.1% American, 8.0% Swedish, 6.8% Irish and 5.0% Norwegian ancestry. There were 311 households, out of which 30.20% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 70.10% were
married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
living together, 4.20% had a female householder with no husband present, and 23.50% were non-families. 19.90% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.60% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.63 and the average family size was 3.06. The county population contained 28.80% under the age of 18, 3.70% from 18 to 24, 24.30% from 25 to 44, 27.20% from 45 to 64, and 16.00% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 108.40 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 101.00 males. The median income for a household in the county was $31,339, and the median income for a family was $41,538. Males had a median income of $25,250 versus $18,750 for females. The
per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the county was $17,149. About 12.30% of families and 13.60% of the population were below the
poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 19.00% of those under age 18 and 11.10% of those age 65 or over.


Economy

About 60% of Banner County is given over to farming: chiefly
winter wheat Winter wheat (usually ''Common wheat, Triticum aestivum'') are strains of wheat that are planted in the autumn to germinate and develop into young plants that remain in the vegetative phase during the winter and resume growth in early spring. C ...
and rangeland,"Banner County".''Scottsbluff Star-Herald''.
November 18, 2009. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
but also
corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...
, beans,
sugar beet A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together with ...
s,
potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...
es,
sunflower The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a species of large annual forb of the daisy family Asteraceae. The common sunflower is harvested for its edible oily seeds, which are often eaten as a snack food. They are also used in the pr ...
s,
rapeseed Rapeseed (''Brassica napus'' subsp. ''napus''), also known as rape and oilseed rape and canola, is a bright-yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae (mustard or cabbage family), cultivated mainly for its oil-rich seed, which naturall ...
, and
millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most millets belong to the tribe Paniceae. Millets are important crops in the Semi-arid climate, ...
. In response to groundwater depletion and drought, the
Natural Resources Conservation Service Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that provides technical assistance to farmers and other private landowners and ...
has developed a system of cash incentives for farmers in the Pumpkin Creek watershed who convert irrigated cropland to
dryland farming Drylands are defined by a scarcity of water. Drylands are zones where precipitation is balanced by evaporation from surfaces and by transpiration by plants (evapotranspiration). The United Nations Environment Program defines drylands as tropical ...
. Oil was discovered in Banner County in 1919, but the deposits were too deep to be commercially viable at that time. Petroleum production in Banner County began in 1951, and peaked in 1960, when was produced from 397 wells. By 2009, the number of wells had fallen to about 200; but new discoveries in
Weld County, Colorado Weld County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 328,981. The county seat is Greeley. Weld County comprises the Greeley, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Denv ...
prompted interest in exploring the Niobrara shale, which lies beneath western Nebraska, northeastern Colorado, and southeastern Wyoming. A 2010 sale of oil leases yielded record prices in Banner and Kimball counties.


Education

Banner County is covered by a single school district, with a
K–12 K–12, from kindergarten to 12th grade, is an English language expression that indicates the range of years of publicly supported primary and secondary education found in the United States and Canada, which is similar to publicly supported sch ...
school located in Harrisburg. As of 2017, the school's enrollment was 151.Banner County Schools website
Retrieved January 15, 2019.


Community


Census-designated place

*
Harrisburg Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...
It is the only community in Banner County and the county seat; it is one of two unincorporated county seats in Nebraska."About Us".Banner County official website.
Retrieved December 11, 2017.


Politics

Banner County voters are strongly Republican. In only three presidential elections since 1900 has the county selected the Democratic Party candidate. This has only strengthened in recent years, with Republicans winning over 80% of the vote in each of the past seven elections, dating back to 2000.


See also

* Big Horn Mountain * National Register of Historic Places listings in Banner County, Nebraska


Notes


References

* Hayes, F. A., and H. L. Bedell (1921).
''Soil Survey of Banner County, Nebraska''.
Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. Retrieved November 22, 2015.


External links


Banner County Historical Society
{{Coord, 41.54, -103.72, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-NE_source:UScensus1990 Nebraska counties 1888 establishments in Nebraska Populated places established in 1888