McCook is a city in and the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

of Red Willow County,

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

, United States. The population was 7,446 at the 2020 census.

History

McCook was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bear ...

ted in 1882 when the

Burlington and Missouri River Railroad The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad (B&MR) or sometimes (B&M) was an American railroad company incorporated in Iowa in 1852, with headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. It was developed to build a railroad across the state of Iowa and began oper ...

was extended to that point. It was named in honor of

Alexander McDowell McCook Alexander McDowell McCook (April 22, 1831June 12, 1903) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. Early life McCook was born in Columbiana County, Ohio. A Scottish family, the McCooks were prominent ...

, a

brigadier general Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

in the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. McCook is known as the capital of the

Buffalo Commons The Buffalo Commons is a conceptual proposal to create a vast nature preserve by returning of the drier portion of the Great Plains to native prairie, and by reintroducing the American bison ("buffalo"), that once grazed the shortgrass prairie. ...

. In the 1980’s when times were hard, academics proposed that they should depopulate the high plains and give it back to the buffalo, except people of the town did not agree and wanted to stay on the land that they loved. The people were resourceful and able to overcome the hardship/stay in their community. Nowadays, the Buffalo Commons is used as a metaphor for looking for a solution. A solution McCook has been trying to utilize is tourism and community growth.

Events

Heritage Days is an annual event held the last full weekend in September. This event has been happening since 1971. It is the town’s largest celebration. This event includes the Heritage Day Parade, a road race, entertainment from the high schoolers, and vendors on the street. Red Willow County Fair is a five day fair held in July. This is the fair for the whole county. It includes games, rides, concerts, tractor rides, a

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working va ...

, and food from local families and businesses. Crazy Days is an annual weekend event to celebrate the local businesses. It includes crazy days sales in the stores, costume contests, and a car show. On the Friday night of this weekend, the people of this small town bring out their old and fancy cars and cruise up and down the main street in town, West B St. and Norris Ave. McCook hosts the Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival each summer.

Geography

McCook is located at (40.205228, −100.626174). According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

, the city has a total area of , all land.

Climate

McCook's climate is formally classified as hot-summer

humid continental A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

. Due to the very hot and humid summers typical of the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

and the January daily mean averaging around it has a little bit of influence of the

subtropical climate The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical and climate zones to the north and south of the tropics. Geographically part of the temperate zones of both hemispheres, they cover the middle latitudes from to approximately 35° north and ...

s to the south, although winter nights are way too severe for subtropical plants to thrive. Winters are generally cold and dry and summers hot and humid. Precipitation is concentrated in spring and summer, accumulating to an annual normal of , the majority of which occurs from May through August. Snowfall is generally light, with a normal of per season, and generally occurs from November through April. Record temperatures range from on January 12, 1912, up to on June 26, 2012; the record cold maximum is on December 22, 1990 and December 22–23, 1989, while, conversely the record warm minimum is on August 1, 1935. More typically, however, there is an average of 5.4 days annually with a maximum at or above , 45 days annually with a maximum at or above , 28 days annually where the maximum stays at or below freezing, and 8.6 days annually with a minimum at or below .

Demographics

2010 census

As of the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

of 2010, there were 7,698 people, 3,324 households, and 2,021 families living in the city. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...

was . There were 3,717 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 95.8%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

, 0.5%

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, 0.5% Native American, 0.4%

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 1.5% from

other races Other often refers to: * Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy Other or The Other may also refer to: Film and television * ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack * ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...

, and 1.3% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

of any race were 4.9% of the population. There were 3,324 households, of which 27.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.8% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...

living together, 9.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 3.7% had a male householder with no wife present, and 39.2% were non-families. 33.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.25 and the average family size was 2.89. The median age in the city was 40.7 years. 23% of residents were under the age of 18; 9.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 22% were from 25 to 44; 26.2% were from 45 to 64; and 19.5% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.3% male and 51.7% female.

2000 census

As of the

of 2000, there were 7,994 people, 3,371 households, and 2,154 families living in the city. The

was 1,485.1 people per square mile (573.7/km). There were 3,754 housing units at an average density of 697.4 per square mile (269.4/km). The racial makeup of the city was 97.37%

, 0.18%

, 0.45% Native American, 0.18%

, 0.91% from

, and 0.91% from two or more races.

of any race were 2.53% of the population. The population was 7,410 in 2009. There were 3,371 households, out of which 29.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.7% were

living together, 8.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.1% were non-families. 31.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.29 and the average family size was 2.90. In the city, the population was spread out, with 24.1% under the age of 18, 9.7% from 18 to 24, 24.2% from 25 to 44, 21.3% from 45 to 64, and 20.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.3 males. As of 2000 the median income for a household in the city was $31,105, and the median income for a family was $40,455. Males had a median income of $28,065 versus $18,516 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

for the city was $16,691. About 7.9% of families and 9.4% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...

, including 9.7% of those under age 18 and 8.4% of those age 65 or over.

Culture

The Harvey P. Sutton House at 602 Norris Avenue was designed by influential architect

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

in 1905–1907 and built 1907–1908. The classic Prairie-style house is listed in the National Register of Historic Places; it is the only Wright house known to have been built in Nebraska. The house is used as a private residence, and is not open to the public. McCook Army Airfield, active from 1943 through 1945, was located nine miles northwest of McCook. McCook hosted a professional baseball team, the McCook Braves, who played in the Nebraska State League from 1956 to 1959. In their final season in 1959, the club featured future

Baseball Hall of Famer The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-re ...

Phil Niekro Philip Henry Niekro ( ; April 1, 1939 – December 26, 2020), nicknamed "Knucksie", was an American baseball pitcher who played 24 seasons in Major League Baseball, 20 of them with the Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves. Niekro's 31 ...

and won the NSL championship; both the Braves and the league folded at season's end. Another pitcher on the team,

Pat Jordan Pat Jordan (17 July 1928 – 1 September 2001) was a British Trotskyist who was central to founding the International Marxist Group. Jordan was born in Chelsea, London,Cohen, S. 'Pat Jordan (1928-2001) in ''Revolutionary History'' Vol.8 No.3 pg ...

, later became a writer for the

Sporting News The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a pr ...

, and wrote an autobiography dealing with his career with the Braves, ''A False Spring''. McCook is home to the first two-year junior college in Nebraska. McCook Junior College was founded in September 1926 on the second floor of the YMCA building on Main Street. The name was eventually changed to McCook Community College and was governed over the Mid-Plains Area. The McCook Economic Development Corporation works “To facilitate the formation, retention, attraction, and expansion of businesses in McCook and the surrounding area.”

Parks and recreation

McCook is home to Heritage Hills Golf Course. The 18-hole par-72 championship golf course was designed by Bradford Benz, ASGCA, and Richard M. Phelps, ASGCA, and opened in 1981. The links style course plays over 7,100 yards from the back tees. Heritage Hills was included in Golf Digest's Best 75 Golf Course's in 1984 and Golf Digest's Top 100 Toughest Public Course's in 1986. Heritage Hills underwent a major renovation for upgrades and modernization in 2013.

Government

McCook has a council-manager style government. Five council members are elected at large; the five elect one of their number as mayor, and a second as vice president. As of 2015, council members are Mayor Mike Gonzales, Vice-President Janet Hepp, Jerry Calvin, Bruce McDowell, and Gene Weedin. The city government operates through eight departments and offices: Administration, Building and Zoning, Fire, Library, Police, Public Works, Senior Center, and Utilities. Advisory boards and commissions, both those required by law and those created for specific purposes, are appointed by the council; as of 2015, there were fourteen such boards and commissions.

Transportation

Rail

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

, the national passenger rail system, provides service through McCook, operating its

California Zephyr The ''California Zephyr'' is a passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area (at Emeryville), via Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Reno. At , it is Amtrak's longest daily route, and second-longest overal ...

daily in both directions between

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and

Emeryville Emeryville may refer to: * Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San ...

(

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

), California, with stops in Omaha, Lincoln, and Hastings.

Air

Commuter airline

Denver Air Connection Denver Air Connection is a subsidiary of Key Lime Air providing both charter and scheduled passenger air service. History Key Lime Air, dba Denver Air Connection (DAC), operates FAR Part 121 regional airline scheduled passenger service and sc ...

is currently serving the McCook Regional Airport with daily nonstop round trip commercial flights to

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Media

Notable people

George W. Norris George William Norris (July 11, 1861September 2, 1944) was an American politician from the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. He served five terms in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican, from 1903 until 1913 ...

, who held seats in the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

and

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

from 1903 to 1943, was a resident of McCook. Norris was the driving force behind the conversion of Nebraska's legislature to a

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multic ...

system; in the Senate, he was a leading figure behind the creation of the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...

. His house in McCook is operated as a museum by the Nebraska State Historical Society, and is listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. Originally named Main, the principal north–south thoroughfare through central McCook was renamed Norris Avenue in his honor. Three governors of Nebraska made their homes in McCook: Ralph G. Brooks, Frank Morrison, and

Ben Nelson Earl Benjamin Nelson (born May 17, 1941) is an American attorney, businessman, and politician who served as the 37th governor of Nebraska from 1991 to 1999 and as a United States Senator from Nebraska from 2001 to 2013. He is a member of the Demo ...

, who represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate for two terms, from 2000 to 2012. Frank B. Morrison Jr., Montana Supreme Court justice and son of Frank Morrison, was born in McCook. John R. McCarl, the first

Comptroller General of the United States The Comptroller General of the United States is the director of the Government Accountability Office (GAO, formerly known as the General Accounting Office), a legislative-branch agency established by Congress in 1921 to ensure the fiscal and ma ...

, was raised in McCook. He is also buried there."John R. McCarl Dies of Heart Attack at 60." ''Washington Post''. August 3, 1940; Hein, Linda. "Norris, McCarl Considered for Presidency in '36 Election." ''McCook Gazette.'' January 11, 2002. Former professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player

Jeff Kinney Jeffrey Patrick Kinney (born February 19, 1971) is an American author and cartoonist, best known for the children's book series ''Diary of a Wimpy Kid''. He also created the child-oriented website ''Poptropica''. Early life Jeff Kinney was born ...

is a 1968 graduate of McCook High School. TV evangelist

Bob Larson Bob Larson (born May 28, 1944) is an American radio and television evangelist, and a pastor of Spiritual Freedom Church in Phoenix, Arizona. Larson has authored numerous books critical of rock music and Satanism. Life and career Larson was bo ...

was raised in McCook.

References

External links

City of McCook

Visit McCook, Tourist Site

McCook Daily Gazette, Newspaper
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mccook, Nebraska Cities in Nebraska Cities in Red Willow County, Nebraska County seats in Nebraska Populated places established in 1882 1882 establishments in Nebraska