Hooker County, Nebraska

Hooker County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Mullen
Year Organized: 1889
Square Miles: 721

Court House:

303 NW 1st Street
County Courthouse
Mullen, NE 69152-0184

Etymology - Origin of County Name

NamedHooker, in honor of Civil War Gen. Joseph Hooker.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Despite the fact the Middle Loup and the Dismal Rivers cross what today is Hooker County, for many years the area was not as well suited as other counties in the Sandhills for farming or livestock grazing. This led to the county developing at a much slower place than some of its neighbors.

For many years the area was a hunting ground for the Sioux Indians and home to buffalo and other wildlife that roamed the rolling hills and deep valleys. The area remained government controlled land and was not open for settlement.

The first permanent settlers in the area homesteaded along the Dismal River in 1884. Other homesteaders slowly moved in and filed claims on both sides of the two rivers. A trading post was established just west of the the present site of Mullen.

In 1877 the Grand Island and Wyoming line of the Burlington Railroad advanced from Broken Bow to near Whitman in neighboring Grant County. Since the railroad was having difficulty obtaining the land it wanted near the trading post for a switching yard, crews laid a switch siding about a mile to the east. A boxcar was used as a depot and it was named Mullen, in honor of one of the contractors building the rail line.

Eleven years later, Amos Gandy and George Trefren purchased land near the depot and laid out the townsite of Mullen. They designated one block of the original town to be used for a courthouse once the county was formed. That would occur the following year when the Legislature established the boundaries for a new county to be named Hooker, in honor of Civil War Gen. Joseph Hooker. During that year the first election was held, county officers conducted their first meetings, taxes were levied, and bonds were sold in the amount of $1,521 for the construction of a courthouse and jail. The two-room structure was completed by the following November.

By 1920 Hooker County reached a peak population of 1,300 and three years later a larger brick courthouse was built.

Neighboring Counties:

Insert Counties Here

Cities and Towns:

- Mullen (County Seat)

village

Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."