Town file
Cooperstown, North Dakota
Cooperstown, North Dakota (Griggs County, North Dakota) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 48, "Head, But No Shoulders" (13 December 2017). Cooperstown, North Dakota, is a tiny town of 0.97 square miles in the east central part of the state, the county seat of Griggs County, about an hour and a half from Fargo and two and a half hours from Bismarck.
- Town
- Cooperstown
- County
- Griggs County
- State
- North Dakota
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 48
- Approximate location
- 47.445, -98.126
Episode 48 / 13 December 2017 / 134 min / full
Head, But No Shoulders
"James says the week's town is Cooperstown, North Dakota (not the one with the Hall of Fame), the county seat of Griggs County, east central North Dakota, about an hour and a half from Fargo" about 0:06:51
The case: Murder of Kurt Douglas Johnson (December 31, 2010 to January 1, 2011). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2017
- Median age
- 51.3
- Median household income
- a little under $43,000
- Median home value
- about $111,000
- Two-bedroom rent
- about $653 a month
- Cost of living
- 90
- Religious
- 62%
- Violent crime
- average
- Property crime
- average
History, in brief
- Cooperstown is the county seat of Griggs County, in east central North Dakota; the whole county has about 2,400 people. about 0:08:25
- Zip code 58425, area code 701; the town covers 0.97 square miles. about 0:09:02
- The town slogan is 'Unlimited possibilities'. about 0:09:18
- Griggs County was settled in 1879 and became an organised county in 1880; at first it included part of what is now Steele County. about 0:10:00
- After an election Cooperstown became the county seat, but men from the town of Hope took the county records from Cooperstown at gunpoint, wanting Hope to be the seat. about 0:10:39
- The dispute ended in a compromise: separate Griggs and Steele counties, with Hope as the county seat of Steele County. about 0:12:05
- The railroad came to Cooperstown in 1882 and a courthouse was built in 1884. about 0:12:21
- By 1910 the town had 1,019 people; in the 1960s it was almost 1,500; in 2010 it was 945. about 0:13:46
- The population is down 24% from 1990. about 0:14:12
- There had been no murder in Cooperstown in 80 years before January 2011. about 0:58:09
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Valley City, North Dakota37 miles
- Gardner, North Dakota58 miles
- Moorhead, Minnesota76 miles
- White Earth, Minnesota109 miles
- Menoken, North Dakota121 miles
- unknown, Minnesota122 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.