A name you remember. A building you pass. A story you want to know. Explore our growing collection of Hooper history.
61 published stories · 20 tour stops · 748 source references · Growing with every discovery
Matching passages and citation notes from our published collection.
A photograph published in 1911 shows a crowd outside J. F. Brandert’s general store in Winslow. People stand close together in front of the storefront. The advertisement calls it a regular Saturday scene. It is a glimpse of a place built around the ordinary work of a country town: buying groceries, selling farm produce, collecting mail and meeting neighbors.
In “A continuing connection with the countryside”
A recent postal record connects Hooper with neighboring Winslow. A February 2025 USPS bulletin formally discontinued the Winslow post office, effective January 25, 2025, and listed Winslow as a place name under Hooper. It retained the Winslow ZIP Code, 68072, and instructed customers to continue using “Winslow, NE 68072” in their addresses. The bulletin distinguishes that administrative action from the earlier service suspension dated March 18, 2019.
In “The Project Club and its neighbors”
Alperstedt names nine area clubs in 1939: West Logan, Hooper Extension, Elkhorn View, Happy Homemakers, Wo-He-Lo, West Bethel, Winslow Willing Workers, Harmony and East Bethel. Her 1976 list names West Logan, Hooper Extension, Elkhorn View, Dizzy Dozen, Happy Hooperettes and Koffee Klatch Klub. These were area groups, not necessarily clubs meeting within Hooper’s city limits. The account does not give each group’s founding date, and it does not explicitly explain the relationship between the names Hooper Project Club and Hooper Extension.
In “A newspaper for a growing town”
The paper’s territory extended beyond the village. By the centennial year, its history described a readership in Hooper, Winslow, Nickerson and Uehling, and identified the Sentinel as the official newspaper for Logan View High School. Church reports, rural correspondence, school activities and business advertising connected those communities through a common weekly publication.
In “Rural schools were changing too”
Rural schools were changing, too. The September 12, 1963 Sentinel reported 262 visitors at Broad View School’s open house. District 89’s new building stood beside Highway 77 north of Winslow, with two classrooms, a room for music and other special instruction, and a basement stage and kitchen. Construction cost $36,200, with equipment and land listed separately. Three older schoolhouses were to be auctioned. The report also described a planned hot-lunch program, showing how a new building could change the school day.
Hooper’s telephone history is still part of everyday life. Today, WesTel Systems lists Hooper, Uehling and Winslow among the communities it serves. Its connection to Hooper reaches back to 1943, when the local company came under the control of W. H. Daubendiek and became connected with West Iowa Telephone. The WesTel name followed in 2001, bringing West Iowa Telephone, Hooper Telephone and MidlandsNet under one brand.
In “From Hooper Methodist to Faith United Methodist”
Faith brought together three local histories. Bethel, organized in Maple Township on February 16, 1874, began with services in the Brown schoolhouse and built a church in 1878. The Winslow Evangelical United Brethren congregation traced its beginnings to Clark Creek meetings in 1874. It organized as a congregation on January 31, 1877, built in 1888 and later relocated to Winslow, reusing lumber from its earlier church in the new building dedicated in 1926.
In “Post 10535 in Winslow, and its Auxiliary in 1993”
The later post’s number appears before the 1993 Main Street listing. In November 1981, the Scribner Rustler advertised a veterans-benefits information meeting at the Winslow auditorium sponsored by “Winslow Post 10535.” Veterans, widows, children and other interested residents were invited. This gives the post a documented Winslow connection by 1981; it does not supply its charter date or establish a relationship to Post 7616.
In “Bringing the church into town”
Early in 1954, St. John’s and St. Paul’s of Winslow discussed merging and building a new church in Hooper. St. Paul’s decided against the merger. St. John’s chose to move its existing building into town, enlarge it and provide a basement.
In “The Hooper Inn’s other emergency”
A public-health clinic opened at the Hooper Inn on Sunday afternoon under Dr. C. D. Heine. The newspaper reported that by Wednesday nearly a thousand people in the Hooper and Winslow area had received first typhoid immunization shots. That figure covers both communities; it is not a count of Hooper residents alone. The report also said the city water supply had been chlorinated by Tuesday. [B]
