Thurston County is a county located in the U.S. state of Nebraska. As of 2010, the population was 6,940. Its county seat is Pender.
In the Nebraska license plate system, Thurston County is represented by the prefix 55 (it had the fifty-fifth-largest number of vehicles registered in the county when the license plate system was established in 1922).
The Siouan-speaking Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska (Ho-Chunk) and the Omaha Tribes have reservations in Thurston County. Together, the two reservations officially comprise the entire land area of the county.
Varying cultures of indigenous peoples lived along the rivers for thousands of years before European encounter.
Thurston County was organized by European Americans in 1889 from land that had been divided between Dakota and Burt counties since the dissolution of Blackbird County in 1879. It was named after the United States Senator John M. Thurston. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurston_County,_Nebraska)