Dorchester Times: Friend Opera House Receives Tax Credits As Renovation Nears Completion

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Friend Opera House Receives Tax Credits As Renovation Nears Completion

The Times has learned that the Nebraska Department of Economic Development (DED) is awarding $25,000 in Community Development Assistance Act (CDAA) tax credits to help restore Friend's historic opera house.

The Friend Historical Society will use the tax credits to retain architectural services for the renovation and restoration to the theater as it relates to future plans to host local, regional and national events.

To date, the Friend Historical Society and its partners have invested more than $250,000 to renovate the Warren Building. Nearly 90 percent of structural and cosmetic street-level improvements are completed.

According to the Friend Chamber of Commerce website, the Warren Opera House was the premier place for social gatherings beginning 1885. It served Friend and neighboring communities for 34 years, providing a venue for plays, dances, lectures, political and sporting events, and even a circus. Though abandoned years ago, the theater still features most of its seats intact and in place, old props displayed on stage, and a curtain that is rolled and stored.

Notable are hundreds of signatures of traveling and local theater troupe actors, and band members inscribed on the wardrobe room walls.

The Yokel family, long-time purveyors of hardware and furniture, donated the building (home of the opera house) to the Society.

The Warren Opera House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and available for touring by appointment. Contact Carey Potter, Friend Historical Society, at (402) 730-0276, or cpotsgo@msn.com.

For information about the CDAA program, contact Jenny Bindrum, CDAA coordinator, at 402-471-6280, or jenny.bindrum@nebraska.gov.

1 comment:

AnonymousMarch 19, 2014 at 9:18 AM
With Crete trying to do some historical renovation, Dorchester housing the Saline Co. Museum, and Friend's work on the Warren Bldg., wouldn't it be great if we had the Hwy 33/Hwy 6 "historical corridor" to promote as a real tourist attraction? It would be like central Nebraska's Junk Jaunt, but with a lot more class. Perhaps have antique sales in all three towns on a given weekend. Just an idea...
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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."