A history of Norfolk,
since 1866
Postcards, papers and photographs of Norfolk from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗In late 1865 three scouts were sent from a German Lutheran settlement near Ixonia, Wisconsin, to find productive, inexpensive farmland that could be claimed under the Homestead Act. From the Omaha area they followed the Elkhorn River upstream to West Point. Finding that area too crowded, they continued up the river. On September 15, they reached the junction of the Elkhorn and its North Fork, and chose that area as a settlement site. On May 23, 1866, a party of 124 settlers representing 42 families from the Ixonia area set out for northeast Nebraska in three wagon trains. They arrived at the new site on July 15. A second group of settlers from Wisconsin arrived in July 1867. These collective wagon parties established the first church in Madison County, St. Paul's Lutheran.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Norfolk’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewCongregational Church, 1908: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Norfolk, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Congregational Church (1908) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Historic places
National Register · via Wikidata
From Wikimedia Commons (5) and the National Register (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.