Dorchester Times: Share Your Photos & Videos With Times Readers

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Share Your Photos & Videos With Times Readers

The Times wants you to share your pictures or videos with our readers. All you need is a digital camera or mobile phone. (*UPDATE 7/28: The Times has already received a handful of photos from Dorchester readers, including "Sunset Swim" by Tina Bayliss and "Nebraska Sunset" from a reader who asked to remain anonymous. Both are pictured at the right.)

If you find yourself with a front-row view of some major event, community gathering, sporting contest, severe weather, a beautiful sunset, or you are just strolling down Dorchester's streets, take a picture or video and share the experience with fellow Times' readers. We will select the best and use them in a future post.

Here's all you have to do:

1. Take the photograph or video with any picture-enabled mobile phone or digital camera.
2. Send it to dorchester.times@gmail.com.

3. Include your name and a brief description in the message field.

Please remember that by submitting your video(s) or photograph(s) you confirm that you agree to grant the Dorchester Times a perpetual, royalty-free right to use your images and make them available to the public. You grant to the Times the right to edit and/or modify your material in any manner necessary in order to have the material comply with our formatting or publication needs. The Times does not guarantee in any manner that all material submitted will be displayed or the term or duration that any material may be displayed. Also, by submitting content, you agree that all images submitted by you are your original creation or otherwise free for us to use in this purpose. You further agree to indemnify and release the Times of any and all liabilities for any claims, charges, injuries, losses or damages of any kind caused by, resulting from or arising out of your submission or the Times' use of the image(s). Now, with the legal terms out of the way, please submit your material. Fellow readers anxiously await to see your work.

4 comments:

cynical richardJuly 28, 2009 at 4:11 PM
I saw the same sunset ..................... except i'm pretty sure i saw four horsemen coming out of the clounds that night ....... no kidding .........................
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AnonymousJuly 28, 2009 at 4:14 PM
Gotta love you, Richard. You make the comments worth reading.
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AnonymousAugust 5, 2009 at 11:47 AM
Wow! We should have a portrait shop in Dorchester to allow our novice photographers to sell their framed shots. I'd buy some.
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AnonymousAugust 5, 2009 at 11:47 AM
Wow! We should have a portrait shop in Dorchester to allow our novice photographers to sell their framed shots. I'd buy some.
ReplyDelete
Replies

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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."