Bristol is located in the western half of Day County on Section 25 of Bristol Township, on the main line of what is now the Burlington Northern Railroad on US Highway 12.  Like so many other small towns of the upper Midwest, Bristol came into being as a result of railroad expansion.  In the late 1870's, the site which was to become Bristol was known to railroad graders as Station #70.  C.P. Prior, a district railroad surveyor and townsite agent, was given credit for naming Bristol in 1881.  He named the town after Bristol, England.  The people who settled in and around Bristol were mostly of the Norwegian, Swedigh and German descent.

The Brokaw House was the first structure in Bristol.  It was built in 1883 and rebuilt through the years to accomodate the people attracted to Day County by offers of free land and new futures.  Richard P. Brokaw, a native of New York, left the Union Army at Richmond with only a few dollars when he was honorably discharged, had married and headed for Dakota Territory.  He first filed a homestead near Vermillion, but when the trains came to Day County he and his family headed north.  His was one of the first families in Bristol.  Mr. Tom Brokaw is a great-grandson of Richard P. Brokaw, and along with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Anton Brokaw, lived in the hotel for a short while.