Dorchester Times: Teen Dies After Crashing Stolen Dorchester Car

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Teen Dies After Crashing Stolen Dorchester Car

The Times has learned that an 18-year-old man died after crashing his stolen car into a traffic light pole in Lincoln this morning.

Lincoln police report the driver sped through north-central Lincoln until the car hit a curb, jump it, ran through a speed limit sign and crashed into the pole. The car belonged to a woman in Dorchester.

Police have withheld the name of the driver.

More from the Lincoln Journal Star:

The silver 2006 Toyota Corolla jumped the curb on the southeast corner of the intersection just before 9 a.m., tore up some grass, sheared off a speed limit sign before crossing 48th Street and hit the metal pole on the southwest corner.

“He was going really fast,” said Susan Beckler, who was about to make a right turn from Fremont onto 48th to go to work when the Corolla whizzed by. “I just saw a flash of silver come around the left side of me. It was extremely fast.” Beckler estimated the driver blazed through the intersection at 70 to 80 mph while trying to make a 90-degree turn. The speed limit on Fremont is 35 mph.

The crash shook the traffic light askew, and cleaved the car's engine block in half. It also took down a street sign near the Casey’s and carried it across the street before hitting the pole. The impact launched the sign some 60 feet, and debris sprayed out for as far as 90 feet.

Beckler said she got out of her car and tried to yank open the driver’s side door, but it was smashed shut. She then opened the passenger-side door and found the teenager sprawled across the middle of the car. He moaned a couple times and then died, she said. “I was pretty sure he was gone,” she added. “It was pretty obvious.”

Lincoln Police Capt. David Beggs said the car had been reported stolen before the crash. It's registered in Saline County to a woman who lives in Dorchester, according to state records.

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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."