Deer Park Hotel was located near this site. Established in 1880, the roadhouse was a large building made of native logs. It was built just opposite the Niobrara River from the Fort Niobrara cantonment. The fort, also established in 1880, served the Sioux Indian reservation north of here in Dakota Territory.
In November 1882 the hotel was the site of the first election in what is now Cherry County. Congressman E.K. Valentine was in a race for reelection. Arrangements were made to solicit votes from railroad workers who were building Sioux City & Pacific rail line in the area. Men at the camp were sent to the polls by being offered transportation and time from work.
Valentine won the election. That fall, about four miles west on Minnechaduza Creek, a new town was named in his honor.
Deer Park Hotel soon faded from memory. When Cherry County was organized in 1883, Valentine became the county seat. That year, the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad arrived and the town boomed.
]]>When a Sioux Indian reservation was established north of here in Dakota Territory in 1878, early settlers in the region grew fearful of attack. They requested military protection, and in 1880 Fort Niobrara was built a few miles east of present-day Valentine. There was no later Indian trouble in the immediate area, and the Ghost Dance religion in the early 1890's brought the last major Indian scare. Among the officers once stationed at Fort Niobrara were John J. Pershing, later commander of U.S. forces in World War I, and Frederick W. Benteen, a survivor of General Custer's ill-fated staff. Fort Niobrara was an active post until 1906. In 1912 part of the original military reservation was set aside as a national game preserve. It has since become Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, with ranges maintaining sizable herds of buffalo, elk and Texas longhorn cattle. Cherry County, a center of cattle production, was organized in 1883 and named for Lieutenant Samuel A. Cherry, a Fort Niobrara office killed in the line of duty. Valentine, founded in 1882, was named for early-day congressman E. K. Valentine.
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