Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Looking Back: Dorchester Businesses In The Post-WWII War Years


It has been nearly 75 years since World War II came to an end.  

Today we look back at the post-war economic boom that changed America's economy for the remainder of the century and dramatically altered life in Dorchester and other rural communities.

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Dorchester businesses, like most others in the U.S., was booming in the mid-20th century. 

During the World War II years and throughout much of the economic surge that followed in the 1950s, Dorchester's businesses community included the following (although not necessarily at any one given time): 
  • a telephone company;
  • three newspapers;
  • three beauty salons;
  • one bank;
  • a drug store;
  • three grocery stores;
  • one dry goods store;
  • two barbers;
  • five produce stations;
  • four garages;
  • three restaurants;
  • a bowling alley;
  • a carpenter;
  • a construction firm
  • three farm implements stores;
  • an insurance agent;
  • a mason;
  • a meat market;
  • two mortuaries;
  • a plumbing and heating repair business;
  • five taverns;
  • a veterinarian;
  • a hardware store;
  • one lumber yard;
  • the farmers cooperative;
  • an investment firm (Guggenmos' Citizens Investment Co., which was housed in the old telephone company building, pictured below as it appeared in the mid-1950s.)
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The economic boom that followed WWII impacted every community in the United States, bringing a period of greater prosperity than any time before, even to Dorchester. 

The 1950s ushered in new industries that supplied Americans with cutting-edge technology, plastics, TVs, frozen foods, automatic home appliances, and improved automobiles.  

In 1952, for example, more than 250 dial telephones were installed in Dorchester and the surrounding area. Dorchester's mayor at the time, Miles Pospisil, made the town's first long-distance phone call to K.L. Lawson, general commercial superintendent of the Lincoln Telephone and Telegraph Co. in Lincoln.

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But the 1950s also brought the end of an era to Dorchester and many other small communities in our area of the country.  

Because of improved and more reliable automobiles, Dorchester lost many of its professional service providers during the '50s, including its doctors, dentists and lawyers. In the mid-1950s, search committee was assembled to find a doctor for Dorchester. The bank donated an office with a five-year lease providing free rent. Money was donated by citizens and businesses to remodel the office and many people volunteered their time to help. Dr. Avis Bray was recruited, but she was in town for only a short period after receiving more lucrative offers in larger communities.

By the mid-1960s, Dorchester had experienced a dramatic downsizing of its business community. Even so, it still claimed two grocery stores, the bank, two beauty salons, two garages, three taverns, one mortuary, one produce station, a laundromat, a meat market, a variety store, the lumber yard, a drug store, a ceramic shop, two construction firms, a welder and repair shop, a plumbing and heating repair shop, one restaurant and the Farmers Co-op, of course.

But a new, long-term course had been set.  


More area residents were doing commerce in larger nearby communities. More of Dorchester's young people left for college or jobs in the city.  

While the post-war years brought more material wealth to Dorchester, they presented new challenges that persisted decades later.

10 comments:

  1. One thing you folks left out is how much more of a religious community we had then, not only in Dorchester but in America. That contributed to a higher standard of life. That's indisputable no matter what garbage they atheist and agnostic crowd belches up.

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  2. Better standard of life for whom? Religion has been the driving factor behind more wars, discrimination, persecution and holocausts throughout history. Religion of any type has caused more human atrocities than any other single socio-economic factor. Keep your religion that's your right but I'll just stick to science, it provides me with tangible facts and evidence not based on a fairy-tale book of myths whether it be the Bible, Koran, or Book of Mormon. The type of religion doesn't really matter they are just a leap of faith based on ancient campfire stories.

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    Replies
    1. Yeppers, too much religion. That's what's wrong with America today. (Please note the heavy sarcasm.) Whatever makes you feel better, man. Whatever...

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  3. Well done whoever you are! You proved my point! You immediately catagorized me as a "Leftist", Liberal, Democrat or whatever catchphrase you chose to call someone who doesn't agree with your views. In my earlier post there was no mention what so ever of my political affiliation. Additionally I didn't mention anything about you being a "Conservative" or a "Right-Winger" or Christian either. You automatically chose to place a label on me because I don't agree with your view points. That's what religion does! It indoctrinates you into placing someone else in a different classification than yourself because they think differently than you do as oppose to seeing them as just another person. Finally I won't pray when I'm on my death bed. I don't need to in my final hours be concered if I've lived my life well enough to wonder if I've done enough things to appease some magical man in the sky. I will die and return to the Earth as naturally as I entered. So yea I'll take your bet have fun proving my thoughts as I'm dying, you'll have as much success in doing that as you will in proving that there is ANY God

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  4. Blah, blah, blah. Go snuggle with Obama, your god. He'll console you.

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  5. Way to ruin a good story, you dopes.

    Go settle in a back alley.

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  6. In my experience, "religious" people have been the most intolerant and cruelest people I've know.
    And I've been around a long time. (never met a scientist I didn't like.)

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  7. David:

    Please come to the Dorchester Methodist Church any given Sunday.

    You will be treated to open arms and warm hearts, whatever your race, creed or color.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Pretty ugly Valentine season in 2014.

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    Replies
    1. I heard a radio guy sum it up best tonight by saying, "Such an angry culture right now." What else can you say?

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