Cook was founded in 1888 when the Missouri Pacific Railroad's Crete branch was built through the area, bypassing two earlier area settlements known as Helena and Bob Town. John William Cook laid out the new townsite on the rail line and named it for his father, Andrew Cook, the original landowner; the first train arrived in November 1888 and the village incorporated in 1891.

Cook is a village with ZIP code 68329, and its population has stayed remarkably steady — 322 (2000), 321 (2010), 323 (2020 Census). Long nicknamed "Artesian City" for its numerous artesian wells, Cook is also home to the Duane Carman Memorial Bridge (built 1989), Nebraska's only covered bridge, located in Cook City Park; in the early 1990s the town won a Jack Daniel's Distillery "Best Small Town in America" award.