Dorchester Times: 2015 Was A Year Of Housing Improvements In Dorchester

Friday, January 1, 2016

2015 Was A Year Of Housing Improvements In Dorchester

Last year was a year in which many Dorchester homeowners worked hard to maintain and improve the appearance of their homes.

The Times staff makes every attempt to travel often throughout eastern and central Nebraska, to see how Dorchester compares to other towns under 1,500. The keys to a great community are the people who live there and the pride they show in their homes, as well as the relationships they have with their neighbors.

While we would love to see paving on every Dorchester street -- and while we would love to see a coordinated, official plan in place to fill every commercial building -- we know that the first key to our high quality of life is our people and the quality of homes they live in. (For example, note the three homes just north of Barley's Specialties on main street. The owners of those homes have done a great job in making improvements.)

The pictures accompanying this post is a tribute to just a few of some of the home owners who have done a great job improving their homes. (We simply don't have space to recognize every nice looking home in town.) In doing so, they are making life better for all of us in Dorchester.

There are still more than a handful of properties in town that are in disrepair. The owners of such properties are sometimes stretched to come up with the resources (money and/or physical capacity) to repair their homes.

For those low-income homeowners, we want to make readers aware of a grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development to assist very low income households with home repairs. For those who own and occupy homes in need of essential repairs and who are wondering how to get financing, USDA Rural Development can help with grants and low-interest loans for homeowners in rural communities. Dorchester is eligible for this program.

Applicants must own and occupy the home and not exceed income guidelines established by county and household size. The family’s income must below 50% of the county median income. For many counties in Nebraska, the income limit for a one person household is $21,350; two person, $24,400; three person, $27,450; four person, $30,500 and five person, $32,950. However, some counties may have higher income limits.

Please contact your USDA Rural Development office for the details in your county, or call (402) 437-5563.

Or visit http://www.rd.usda.gov/ne. You may also contact Single Family Housing Specialist Krista Mettscher at 402-437-5518, krista.mettscher@ne.usda.gov.

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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."