Dorchester Times: Milford-Dorchester Football Team Heads To State

Monday, October 28, 2013

Milford-Dorchester Football Team Heads To State

As most readers know, this football season marks the first time in more than 60 years that Dorchester High School has not had its own football team due to low numbers of participants. But the rebuilding process is already underway as DHS this school year started a trial co-operative with Milford High School for both junior high and high school football.

The Times has learned that the Miford-Dorchester Eagles have qualified for Nebraska's Class C-1 State Playoffs in their first year of existence. The team will play Lincoln Christinan this Thursday, Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. at Seacrest Field in Lincoln.

This is a noteworthy accomplishment for the boys from both schools. The team's future appears quite bright, considering the young talent on the team, as well as the strong numbers coming up through junior high.

The news of the Milford-Dorchester team making it to state reminded us what one DHS parent e-mailed the Times just before the start of the season: "Dorchester can have a proud football culture once again," he said. "But we need to take advantage of this merger with Milford to get our kids interested in playing the game, regardless if those kids come from town, the farm, from single-parent households, from low-income homes ... whatever. We want to rebuild the idea of team and get these boys to work for something bigger than themselves. Football can teach that but the community must get behind our efforts."

Congratulations to the Milford-Dorchester squad!

4 comments:

Village DwellerOctober 28, 2013 at 10:54 PM
Dear Readers:

For those who appreciate Dorchester history, the 2013 season marked the first time since 1948 that Dorchester had not had its own high school team.

In 1949, the DHS football program was restarted after years of not playing following a DHS player's death on the gridiron in the early 1930s.

-Dorchester Times staff
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AnonymousOctober 29, 2013 at 8:28 PM
Lets get our own team back. Six man is still an option
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AnonymousOctober 30, 2013 at 3:27 PM
Here's an honest question:

Would the football field need to be reconfigured again (goal posts moved, etc.) if DHS returned to 6-man ball, as we played in the 1950s?
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AnonymousNovember 11, 2013 at 12:33 PM
Wouldn't even have enough for 6 man, off to bigger and better things
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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."