Dorchester Times: Saline County Named To Magazine's Top 100 Places To Live

Monday, February 18, 2008

Saline County Named To Magazine's Top 100 Places To Live

Progressive Farmer magazine has published its fourth annual "Best Places to Live in Rural America" report -- and Saline County has made the publication's Top 100.

The magazine's editors compiled their list of best rural counties based on certain criteria, including home and land prices; crime rates; environment; education; economic factors; and health care access. Three Nebraska counties made the magazine's top 20 list of Midwest counties. Red Willow County was listed as No. 10, Adams County was ranked as No. 12, and Wayne County was listed as No. 18. Saline County was ranked No. 71. Only five other Nebraska counties made Progressive Farmer's Top 100.

According to the magazine's statistics, Saline County scored well for its low housing costs; low unemployment and poverty rates; student/teacher ratio; large number of college bound students; and average sales tax rate. The county's score was hurt by a slow job growth rate and below-average number of health care clinics and pharmacies. Air quality and rainfall indices were also noticeably below average.

You can vote online for Saline County as your favorite place to live by clicking here. Progressive Farmer's complete list of Top 100 Midwest Counties can be viewed here.

3 comments:

AnonymousFebruary 18, 2008 at 5:35 PM
Wow! Thanks for the info. I came back once and it did not work out. Maybe I should try again.
(DC Husker)
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AnonymousFebruary 18, 2008 at 5:40 PM
This does really surprise those of us who live here. Congratualations to us! The only time I've ever really been down on this place is when some of the locals don't work to fulfill our potential and when the communities do not cooperate. I'm not too happy with some of the farmers who destroy the natural beauty of the county by tearing out tree lines and putting in pivots. It seems short sighted but I guess it's their land and they pay the property taxes that support the schools.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2008 at 11:48 AM
We should be shouting this from the mountain tops (or at least the silo tops)! This would be a good recruitment message.
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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."