About Our County

Fun Facts

Hitchcock County was named for Phineas Warren Hitchcock, who served as a United States Senator from Nebraska.
The county covers approximately 710 square miles in southwestern Nebraska.
About 94% of Hitchcock County’s land is agricultural, with pasture and dryland farming accounting for most of it.
Hitchcock County’s traditional Nebraska license plate prefix is 67.
Massacre Canyon, near Trenton, is one of Nebraska’s most significant historic sites and is especially important to the Pawnee Nation.
The Massacre Canyon Monument was dedicated in 1930 and the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
All four of the county’s incorporated communities — Culbertson, Palisade, Stratton and Trenton — continue to have railroad service.
An old concrete bridge between Stratton and the Swanson Reservoir area dates to 1908 and is identified in the county’s planning documents as Nebraska’s earliest documented example of concrete bridge construction.
The Hitchcock County Museum includes an 1886 building in Trenton that previously served as a bank and offices before becoming a museum.

Settlement in what became Hitchcock County began in 1873, when settlers staked claims along Blackwood Creek near present-day Culbertson.
Hitchcock County was established in 1873 and named for Nebraska U.S. Senator Phineas W. Hitchcock.
Culbertson was the original county seat. The county seat was later moved to Trenton in 1896.
Railroad construction reached Culbertson in 1881, and by 1882 the line extended west into Colorado.
Trenton was surveyed and platted in 1885 and was named after Trenton, New Jersey.
Cattle ranching dominated much of the county during the 1880s, while the spread of barbed wire encouraged homesteading and crop farming.
Drought and grasshopper infestations created serious hardships for farmers in the 1890s, while irrigation eventually helped make crop production more dependable.
The Battle of Massacre Canyon occurred on August 5, 1873, when a Pawnee hunting party was attacked by a much larger Lakota force near present-day Trenton. The site remains culturally significant to the Pawnee Nation.