Pawnee City, the county seat of Pawnee County, was platted and its first lots were sold in the spring of 1857. Pawnee County, named for the Pawnee Indians who lived in Nebraska for generations, was defined by the territorial legislature on March 3, 1855, and this site was designated as the county seat when the county was organized at a November 4, 1856 election. A permanent limestone courthouse was completed in 1869, and by 1880 Pawnee City’s population was 763. A disastrous fire in August 1881 destroyed two-thirds of the business district, which was rebuilt primarily with fireproof construction during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fifty-six structures in a six-block area, including the 1911 county courthouse, form the Pawnee City Historic Business District, which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. Pawnee City has also been home to several notable individuals, including Nebraska’s first state governor David Butler, U.S. Senator Kenneth Wherry, silent film legend Harold Lloyd, TV’s “Irish” McCalla, who portrayed “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,” and comedian Dan Whitney, better known as “Larry the Cable Guy.”