Dorchester Times: New Task Forces Sets Its Sights On Dorchester's Future

Friday, December 20, 2013

New Task Forces Sets Its Sights On Dorchester's Future

The Dorchester Times has learned a new community task force has been formed by village leaders to address Dorchester's future growth and quality of life.

According to an e-mail we received, the Dorchester Community Task Force is comprised of younger residents who live within the village limits. The group will study current challenges and opportunities facing Dorchester, as well as propose fresh solutions and a comprehensive plan moving forward. Among the issues the group will analyze will be housing, infrastructure, businesses, and recreation.

"This is a wonderful step," the source wrote in her e-mail to the Times. "It is so refreshing to see a younger generation of leaders step forward and carry the water for our community.

"Dorchester offers a lot of promise and good standard of living, with a new school, new water system, and good people who have many options nearby for jobs and careers. We need younger residents to have a voice on some important decisions that will be made in the near future."

We are told the task force members are: LJ Barley, Kelly Vyhnalek, Penny Keller, and Brent Zoubek.

We tip our collective hat to these young Dorchester leaders and we offer our support in every way possible.

4 comments:

AnonymousDecember 21, 2013 at 7:31 PM
It would be great to get new families to move into Dorchester but if the basketball teams coop with Milford, that will be one more factor to keep people away. People move to small towns so their kids can be involved and participate (play) on all sports teams. Let's all hope the school board is listening to the majority of the townspeople and will vote to keep the basketball programs in our HOMETOWN!
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AnonymousDecember 23, 2013 at 4:54 PM
Thanks to these folks for leading by example and raising their hands to come forward when needed
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AnonymousDecember 26, 2013 at 11:51 PM
In a world gone mad, steeped in moral decay, brainless celebrity culture and global schemes, the future of news and community discourse is the model established by this blog. GOOD WORK, DORCHESTER TIMES. I hope you folks are involved in the town's future plans as well.
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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."