For millennia, the Great Plains of North America were inhabited by nomadic Native Americans.

From the 16th to 18th centuries, the Kingdom of France claimed ownership of large parts of North America.

In 1803, the land that included modern day Kansas was acquired by the United States from France as part of the 828,000 square mile Louisiana Purchase.

Prior to the arrival of settlers of European ancestry, the area was inhabited by Indian tribes including the Pawnee, Iowa, and Otoe.

[4] One should also consider that other nomadic Indian tribes pursuing the buffalo, including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kansa, Kiowa, Osage, and Wichita, may have made the area their home at one time or another.

[8] Following the Civil War and during the latter half of the 19th century, Belleville and the surrounding area became a destination for European immigrants, notably from Sweden and Bohemia (now Czech Republic).

[9][10][11] In 1887, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway built a branch line from Neva (3 miles west of Strong City) to Superior, Nebraska.

This branch line connected Strong City, Neva, Rockland, Diamond Springs, Burdick, Lost Springs, Jacobs, Hope, Navarre, Enterprise, Abilene, Talmage, Manchester, Longford, Oak Hill, Miltonvale, Aurora, Huscher, Concordia, Kackley, Courtland, Webber, Superior.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won the county, with the exception of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 and Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916.

The city of Belleville is considered governmentally independent and is excluded from the census figures for the townships.