[2] In the Nebraska license plate system, Thurston County is represented by the prefix 55 (it had the 55th-largest number of vehicles registered in the county when the license plate system was established in 1922).

Varying cultures of indigenous peoples lived along the rivers for hundreds of years before European encounter.

The Omaha occupied this territory and much of Nebraska and western Iowa before the Europeans arrived.

They had migrated west from the Ohio Valley under pressure from the Iroquois Confederacy in the early 17th century.

The west portion of the county is drained by the Logan Creek Drainage, which flows south-southeast.

[4] The land area of the county is completely comprised from the Omaha and Winnebago Indian reservations.

In 2004, Thurston, a majority-Native American county, was the only one in Nebraska with a majority voting for the Democratic Party presidential candidate, John Kerry.

In the 2012 presidential election, Thurston was the only Nebraska county that voted for Obama in his successful re-election bid.

The predominantly Native American communities in the east of the county (Winnebago, Walthill and Macy) lean Democratic, but despite them having more population altogether than the Republican predominantly white communities in the west of the county, they sport lower voter turnouts.