Gooding County was created by the Idaho Legislature on January 28, 1913 by a partition of Lincoln County.  Named for Frank R. Gooding, pioneer sheep rancher, early mayor of the city of Gooding, later Idaho Governor and U. S. Senator. Mountain men and fur traders trapped the Malad River extensively in the early 1800s. Settlers came to the rich agricultural lands of the Hagerman Valley in the 1860s.  The county seat is located in the City of Gooding.  The county contains the cities of Bliss, Gooding, Hagerman and Wendell. 

     The County encompasses 730.78 square miles and has a population of 15,464 (2010), making the statistic 21.2 persons per square mile. Gooding County has been one of the fastest growing and prosperous counties in South Central Idaho with a 9.2% increase in population in the past ten years. The economy is increasingly influenced by the dairy industry, and growth has been strong in the last decade. Although unemployment was very high in the early 1990’s, the dairy influence and cheese factories have stabilized unemployment and now Gooding County often has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. Gooding County also is one of the largest trout producing areas in the United. The scenic Thousand Springs and the temperate weather of the City of Hagerman make tourism a significant industry with boat trips, fishing, and other water sports. Per capita income has grown steadily in Gooding County, and it is higher than the state average.  Gooding County is entirely on the Snake River Plain, north of the Snake River. Thus all the rocks are Miocene and younger, with Quaternary basalt covering most of the county. In the north the Gooding City of Rocks, carved from Miocene rhyolite ignimbrites of the Twin Falls Volcanic Field, forms the south flank of the Mount Bennett Hills. Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, itself located on the west side of the Snake River in Twin Falls County, has its headquarters in Hagerman.  Malad Gorge, a narrow canyon cut by the Wood River in the last few hundred thousand years, is a unique feature of southern Gooding County.

According to the US Census, 16.1% of the County population is of German ancestry, 11.6% of English ancestry, 10.4% of Irish ancestry (all others were below 4% of various other ancestries). There were estimated to be 95 students enrolled in Nursery or Preschool, 339 enrolled in Kindergarten, 1,579 in Elementary school (grades 1-8), 863 in High school (grades 9-12) and 360 in College or graduate school.  52.1% of the County population are male with 47.9% female.  The median age is 36.7 years.  Gooding County is predominately white (80.7%) with 28.1% of Hispanic or Latino origin.

Gooding County currently has an unemployment rate of 1.9%.  The average time to get to work was 20 minutes.  The median household income is approximately $36,298.00.

There is an estimated 6,083 total housing units in Gooding County.  The majority of housing structures were built between 1970 to 1979 (1,293) and 1950 to 1959 (1,001). Between 1990 to 1999, 935 structures were built.  73.2% of homes are owner-occupied (based on 2005-2009 data).  The median value of area homes is $123.700.00.  The median rent paid for housing is $554.00.