Cherry County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Cherry County

At 5,961 sq mi Cherry is the largest county by area in Nebraska — physically bigger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, with a population of 5,586 spread across roughly one person per square mile. The Bessey Ranger District of the Nebraska National Forest 50 miles south in Thomas County holds 20,000 acres of pine planted entirely by hand between 1902 and 1965, originally as a Charles Bessey experiment and continued by Civilian Conservation Corps crews through the Depression — the largest hand-planted forest in the world per US Forest Service historical record, and the only USFS-managed timber stand to have originated from a single botanist's research thesis. The Niobrara National Scenic River cuts east-west across the southern half of the county for 76 miles of NPS-designated wild-and-scenic corridor (NPS Niobrara unit), one of the most-canoed and tubed rivers on the central Plains; summer outfitters in Valentine (population 2,624, the county seat) run shuttle trips between Cornell Bridge and Berry Bridge that pass 200+ named waterfalls dropping off the Pine Ridge escarpment into the river.

Smith Falls State Park on the Niobrara holds the tallest waterfall in Nebraska (Smith Falls, 63 ft, on a small spring-fed tributary) and accepts rigs to 35 ft with no hookups; reservations on the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission system are required from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. The Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge on the eastern county edge runs a 350-head American bison herd and a 60-head elk herd that are visible from the auto-tour route year-round. Sandhills topography — the largest stabilized sand-dune field in the western hemisphere per USGS Great Plains mapping — covers most of the county outside the Niobrara corridor, with grass-pinned dunes rising 200-400 ft above the playa lakes that draw waterfowl spring and fall. Practical RV travel here means long fuel-stop intervals: from Valentine the next 24-hour station east is Ainsworth, 35 miles; west to Merriman, 60 miles.