Dakota County, Nebraska: History
Succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples lived along the Missouri River for millennia. By 1775, the Omaha people had migrated west of the Missouri, where they established a major settlement, Ton-wa-tonga, (the Big Village). It had some 1100 residents. From here, the Omaha controlled fur trading on the upper Missouri River with other tribes and with French-Canadian traders, often called voyageurs. The Omaha were the first of the Northern Plains tribes to have adopted an equestrian culture.
Dakota County was formed by European-American settlers in 1855. They named it after the Dakota Sioux tribe, who were powerful in the area of Nebraska and South Dakota at the time. By this time, the Omaha were concentrated further south in what became the state of Nebraska.
In 1885, the county went to the United States Supreme Court in Dakota County v. Glidden over a dispute with issuing bonds.
As of May 2020, the county had the second-highest per capita COVID-19 infection rate of any American county. About one of every 14 residents has tested positive, mostly at Tyson's large meat packing plant in Dakota City. There were 1452 cases reported as of May 11, 2020. This had increased by July 4, 2020, to 1634 cases, and 38 deaths, giving Dakota County the highest per capita death rate to that date.