The history of the community of Battle Creek is compiled to preserve names and places for those who now call our community "home" and for the enjoyment of generations to follow.

Others have written stories about Madison County, Battle Creek, and early settlers. We gratefully acknowledge these recordings and borrow much from them.

Though the area of Nebraska was known as the "Great American Desert" by historians of a hundred years ago, it could hardly be known as such today. The verdant land which grows such good crops, the herds of cattle and other livestock grazing on the land, and the well improved farms are proof that the faith, fortitude and integrity of the men and women who came to wrest the land from its wild state was not in vain. They came from the east and they came from over the sea, all eager to acquire land of their own and a home. They also came to found villages. The merchants and tradesmen to establish business and industry, the doctors, and dentists to care for the ill, the missionaries to found churches, and often they helped to establish schools and colleges. Eventually came the railroads. Some of the villages best situated geographically became thriving cities while others remain as the villages of today, and some are now only a memory. These villages, though not so populous, are nevertheless in every instance "home" to someone who was born there and spent his formulative years in such a place.

Battle Creek is no exception to the rule. Though the town never grew to great proportions, the good people of the town and the surrounding rural area are proud of the churches, schools, industry and civic enterprises located here. They have shown an unsurpassed spirit of cooperation and civic mindedness by working together as indicated in winning the state wide Community Betterment Contest for 1963, winning not only first prize for towns in its class but winning the grand prize for towns and cities in every class. They are grateful for the heritage left them by the pioneers who came to claim the land from its wild state of a century ago, and those who founded the institutions which now make up the town.

The earliest history of the area is that it was a part of the Louisiana Purchase made in 1803, purchased by the United States from France during the administration of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States.

At that time what is now known as Madison County was inhabited only by roving bands of Indians, chiefly the Pawnee tribe. Perhaps other tribes would at times intrude in the hunting, fishing and wild fruit rights of this tribe as there is evidence of intertribal wars in Nebraska before the white man came to claim the land.

A map in a book by Addison E. Sheldon, Ph.D., who was for years Superintendent and Secretary of the Nebraska State Historical Society

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