Hitchcock County is a county in Nebraska, United States, on the Kansas state line along the Republican River valley. It had a population of 2,616 at the 2020 census and covers 718 square miles (1,860 km2) of land and water, centred near 40\u00b011\u2032N 101\u00b002\u2032W.<\/p>\n
Trenton is the county seat, and its postal code is 69044. The county has four incorporated villages plus a handful of unincorporated places, sits in the Central time zone, and is the westernmost county in Nebraska to observe Central Time rather than Mountain.<\/p>\n
Hitchcock County has four incorporated villages \u2014 Culbertson, Palisade, Stratton, and the county seat Trenton \u2014 plus several unincorporated places, some of them former townsites that lost their post offices decades ago.<\/p>\n
| Place<\/th>\n | Type<\/th>\n | Pop.<\/th>\n | ZIP<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trenton<\/td>\n | Village · seat<\/td>\n | 576<\/td>\n | 69044<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Culbertson<\/td>\n | Village<\/td>\n | 642<\/td>\n | 69024<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Stratton<\/td>\n | Village<\/td>\n | 339<\/td>\n | 69043<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Palisade<\/td>\n | Village<\/td>\n | 331<\/td>\n | 69040<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
| Beverly<\/td>\n | Unincorp.<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n | —<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n Palisade sits mostly in neighboring Hayes County, with only a small part of the village extending into Hitchcock County. Beverly is a former townsite along the Republican River with no remaining services; its old rail platform gave the surrounding farm area its name. Two other historic sites, Cornell and Dike, are marked only by rural cemeteries and crossroads today and are not carried in this list as no verifiable population or ZIP data exists for either.<\/p>\n ZIP Codes<\/h2>\nBeverly and the county’s other unincorporated places have no ZIP code of their own and are served by mail from the nearest village above.<\/p>\n Geography<\/h2>\nHitchcock County covers 718 square miles of rolling High Plains terrain in Nebraska’s southwest corner, with 710 square miles of land and 8.5 square miles of water (1.2%). The Republican River flows east through the county, feeding a mix of dry-land farming on the uplands and center-pivot irrigation in the river valley. The county sits on the Kansas border and is bounded by Red Willow County to the east, Hayes County to the north, Frontier County to the northeast, Dundy County to the west, and Rawlins County, Kansas, to the south.<\/p>\n Demographics<\/h2>\nHitchcock County had 2,616 residents at the 2020 census, giving a density of about 3.7 people per square mile. Culbertson and Trenton are the county’s two largest communities. Nebraska’s 2023 median household income is $74,590 statewide; Hitchcock County, a small rural farm county, typically runs below that figure, though no county-specific ACS estimate is verified here.<\/p>\n Economy & Local Life<\/h2>\nAgriculture drives the county economy \u2014 irrigated corn and soybeans along the Republican River, wheat and dry-land row crops on the uplands, and cattle grazing on the rangeland to the south and west. Hitchcock County has voted strongly Republican for more than a century; as of 2021 the county had 1,326 registered Republicans against 262 Democrats.<\/p>\n History<\/h2>\nHitchcock County was organized in 1873 and named for Phineas Warren Hitchcock, a U.S. senator from Nebraska. The Massacre Canyon battle between Sioux and Pawnee war parties, one of the last major intertribal battles on the Great Plains, was fought on August 5, 1873, at a site three miles east of Trenton \u2014 the same year the county was created.<\/p>\n Getting There<\/h2>\nU.S. Routes 6 and 34 cross the county together, with Nebraska Highways 17, 25, and 25A providing north-south connections.<\/p>\n
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