Dawes County Courthouse

Dawes County Courthouse is the home of the county court (Suite D) and the district court (Suite B). They are each part of their respective Twelfth judicial district of Nebraska. US 20 cuts all the way across Dawes county and meets US 385 near Chadron. On the way it connects with SR2 and SR 71.

It seems like Chadron owes it all to a woman homesteader. She coaxed shopkeepers to set up there stores on a portion of her claim near the confluence of the White River and Chadron Creek to serve the new farms being set up in the area in the 1870's. Her desire to name the town, thus established, for herself did not bear fruition and the town was named for a manager of a fur trading post built in 1841 to the South of town. At the time the county was part of Sioux county but was split from it around 1886. There are a few parks in town, one of them with a municipal pool, in addition to a soccer fields, baseball field, Little League field, women's softball field and a softball field complex. Chadron is home to Chadron State college, which opened in 1911, and confers Bachelor's and Master's degrees in several different fields such as Science and education.