{"id":6052,"date":"2023-07-19T21:28:13","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T21:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/?p=6052"},"modified":"2026-08-21T16:17:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T16:17:33","slug":"hooker-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/hooker-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Hooker County, Nebraska"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hooker County is a county in Nebraska, United States, in the Sandhills region of the state&#8217;s north-central plains. It had a population of 711 at the 2020 census and covers 721 square miles (1,868 km2) centred near 41\u00b055\u2032N 101\u00b007\u2032W.<\/p>\n<p>Mullen is the county seat and its postal code is 69152. The county has one village and a scatter of unincorporated ranch communities; it observes Mountain Time, unusual for Nebraska, and carries FIPS county code 46.<\/p>\n<h2>Towns &amp; Villages in Hooker County<\/h2>\n<p>Hooker County is one of the least populated counties in Nebraska. Mullen, the county seat, is the only incorporated place; the rest of the list is unincorporated ranch-country locales named on maps and older gazetteers.<\/p>\n<div class=\"tv-table-scroll\">\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Place<\/th>\n<th>Type<\/th>\n<th>Pop.<\/th>\n<th>ZIP<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Mullen<\/td>\n<td>Village &middot; seat<\/td>\n<td>500<\/td>\n<td>69152<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Kelso<\/td>\n<td>Unincorp.<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<td>69152<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Weir<\/td>\n<td>Unincorp.<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<td>69152<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;Wright City Trailer Court,&#8221; listed on an older version of this page, could not be verified as an existing Hooker County place and has been dropped. Kelso and Weir are historic rail-siding and ranch locales rather than active town centers; both are served by Mullen&#8217;s post office.<\/p>\n<h2>ZIP Codes<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>69152 &mdash; Mullen (also serves the rest of the county, including Kelso and Weir)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hooker County has a single ZIP code, since Mullen&#8217;s post office is the only one operating in the county.<\/p>\n<h2>Geography<\/h2>\n<p>Hooker County sits in the Nebraska Sandhills, a region of grass-stabilized sand dunes used almost entirely for cattle ranching. The Middle Loup River flows east through the upper part of the county, and the terrain is otherwise a mix of dune ridges, wet meadows, and small lakes typical of the Sandhills. The county is bordered by <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/cherry-county\/\">Cherry County<\/a> to the north, <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/thomas-county-nebraska\/\">Thomas County<\/a> to the east, <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/mcpherson-county-nebraska\/\">McPherson County<\/a> to the south, <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/arthur-county\/\">Arthur County<\/a> to the southwest, and <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/grant-county-nebraska\/\">Grant County<\/a> to the west.<\/p>\n<h2>Demographics<\/h2>\n<p>Hooker County had 711 residents at the 2020 census, giving it a density under one person per square mile \u2014 among the lowest of any Nebraska county. Mullen, with about 500 residents, accounts for over two-thirds of the county&#8217;s population; the remainder lives on scattered ranches. Nebraska&#8217;s median household income was the Nebraska median of $74,590 (2023 ACS); Hooker County&#8217;s rural ranching economy runs well below the state figure.<\/p>\n<h2>Economy &amp; Local Life<\/h2>\n<p>Cattle ranching on native Sandhills grass is the county&#8217;s dominant industry, as it has been since settlement. The dune terrain that made row-crop farming impractical turned out to be well suited to grazing, and ranch families here still run cow-calf operations on land that has stayed largely unbroken since the 1880s. Mullen is home to the weekly <em>Hooker County Tribune<\/em> and the Mullen Public Schools district, which runs both an elementary and a high school for the county \u2014 Hooker County has no other school district. Just outside Mullen, Sand Hills Golf Club has drawn national attention as one of the highest-rated golf courses in the country, bringing seasonal visitor traffic to an otherwise sparsely populated county.<\/p>\n<h2>History<\/h2>\n<p>Hooker County was organized on March 29, 1889, and named for Union Civil War general Joseph Hooker. Like its Sandhills neighbors, it developed slowly because the dune terrain resisted the row-crop farming that settled much of the rest of the state; ranching, not homesteading, became the durable local economy. The county has voted overwhelmingly Republican in presidential elections since World War II \u2014 Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 was the last Democrat to carry it. Population peaked in the early homestead era and has declined for decades since, a pattern shared across most of the Sandhills as ranch operations consolidated into fewer, larger holdings.<\/p>\n<h2>Getting There<\/h2>\n<p>Nebraska Highway 2 and Nebraska Highway 97 cross in Mullen, the county&#8217;s only significant road junction.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Thedford, Thomas County &mdash; 25 miles east<\/li>\n<li>Valentine, Cherry County &mdash; 65 miles north<\/li>\n<li>North Platte &mdash; 85 miles south<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The nearest commercial airport is North Platte Regional Airport, roughly 85 miles south.<\/p>\n<h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Where is Hooker County, Nebraska?<\/strong><br \/>It is in the Sandhills of north-central Nebraska, bordered by Cherry, Thomas, McPherson, Arthur, and Grant counties.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is the population of Hooker County?<\/strong><br \/>711 people at the 2020 census, one of the smallest counts of any Nebraska county.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How big is Hooker County?<\/strong><br \/>It covers 721 square miles (1,868 km2), almost entirely land.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is the county seat of Hooker County?<\/strong><br \/>Mullen is the county seat and the county&#8217;s only incorporated village.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How many towns are in Hooker County?<\/strong><br \/>Just one incorporated village, Mullen, plus a few unincorporated ranch locales such as Kelso and Weir.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What ZIP codes are in Hooker County?<\/strong><br \/>The whole county is served by one ZIP code, 69152, out of Mullen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why does Hooker County observe Mountain Time?<\/strong><br \/>It is the easternmost Nebraska county to keep Mountain Time, a holdover from its ranching-era ties westward rather than to the Central-time cities further east.<\/p>\n<p>More counties in this state: <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/category\/nebraska\/\">Towns and villages in Nebraska<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hooker County is a county in Nebraska, United States, in the Sandhills region of the state&#8217;s north-central plains. It had a population of 711 at the 2020 census and covers 721 square miles (1,868 km2) centred near 41\u00b055\u2032N 101\u00b007\u2032W. Mullen is the county seat and its postal code is 69152. The county has one village [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"Towns & Villages in Hooker County, Nebraska","_seopress_titles_desc":"Hooker County, Nebraska: population, Mullen the county seat, ZIP code 69152, Sandhills geography, history, and nearby counties.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-6052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nebraska","tag-towns-and-cities","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6052"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11229,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052\/revisions\/11229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}