Dorchester Times: Large Number Of Czech Names Land Dorchester On National Rankings

Monday, May 17, 2010

Large Number Of Czech Names Land Dorchester On National Rankings

In case you had any doubts, a recent national study has found that surnames of Czech descent are the most common in the Dorchester area. However, two of the top five names are of German origin. According to the National Fire Incident Reporting System, the most popular last names in the Dorchester zip code are:

Nerud
Sehnert
Stehlik
Mariska
Weber
Krivohlavek
Parks
Duchek
Bruha
Novak

The large number of Czech names have also landed Dorchester on some national lists. According to information compiled by City-Data.com, Dorchester is No. 55 on the list of "top 101 zip codes with the largest percentage of Czech first ancestries."

Moreover, Dorchester is No. 97 on the list of "top 101 zip codes with the largest percentage of Czechoslovakian first ancestries." And the 68343 zip code is No. 101 on the list of "top 101 zip codes with the largest percentage of Slavic first ancestries."

8 comments:

AnonymousMay 17, 2010 at 11:42 PM
better check on backgrounds. are they all here legally
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AnonymousMay 18, 2010 at 3:54 PM
I have the naturalization papers of ALL of my Bohmeian/Moravian ancestors! They came here legal, and they came here to be Americans!

JR Wolfe
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AnonymousMay 18, 2010 at 4:19 PM
I see where the U.S. State Dept spokesman critical of the AZ immigration law admits he hasn't read it; neither has 'Big Sis' Napolitano; and neither have the 20+ million illegals. Why? Because it's in English.

Press "1" to get your country back.
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AnonymousMay 18, 2010 at 4:23 PM
State Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont says he plans to introduce a bill similar to the new Arizona immigration law in the Nebraska Legislature the next session, which begins in January. The Arizona law requires police enforcing another law to verify a person's immigration status if there's reasonable suspicion the person is in the U.S. illegally.
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90s GradMay 19, 2010 at 8:59 AM
The beautiful thing about immigration in the late 1800s and early 1900s is that there was a true "melting pot." You had Jews, Irish, Czechs, Germans, Brits, Italians, Russians, Chinese, Japanese. The problems as the LIBERALS see it is that none of these were third-worlders. Today, to be politically correct, to be an immigrant you need to be from a third world country and have no skills whatsoever.

Let's deport the liberals along with the illegals.
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AnonymousMay 20, 2010 at 6:20 AM
Nice to see the surname of my mother's side of the family in the list.
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AnonymousMay 20, 2010 at 6:23 PM
These people all had their green cards.
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AnonymousMay 20, 2010 at 10:06 PM
How many of you reading this are Native American? Didn't most of your families come to the U.S. in search of a better life? What would you do if your children had no hope for the future? Understanding what drives people to leave their homes and loved ones to come to a country that doesn't want them may help sort out a solution that works for everyone. Ignorant anger helps no one.
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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."