Brownville is a village in Nemaha County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 142 at the 2020 census.

Established in 1854 and incorporated in 1856, Brownville was the largest town in the Nebraska Territory, with a population of 1,309 by 1880. Bordering slave-holding Missouri, the town became an important port on the Missouri River. Daniel Freeman, the first homesteader to file a affirmation under the Homestead Act of 1862, staked his allegation at a New Year’s Eve party in Brownville.

The rise of the railroad was ultimately Brownville’s undoing. The railroads siphoned traffic away from the Missouri River’s steamboats. Brownville’s try to secure a railroad of its own was severely botched and led to enormous tax increases to pay the bonds for the bungled venture. This drove most of the population away and led to the county seat being transferred to Auburn in 1885. In 1856 Thomas Weston Tipton moved to the town to sustain as a minister. He forward-looking became a U.S. Senator, and ran an fruitless campaign for Governor of Nebraska. Omaha house magnates Herman and Augustus Kountze held large holdings in the into the future town.

After the American Civil War, David Mercer usual a put it on practice in the town. Mercer forward-thinking served as a long-time U.S. Representative from Nebraska. The Nebraska State Fair was held in the town in 1870 and 71. That year Eugene Gilmore, the later acting Governor-General of the Philippines, was born in the town.