Dorchester Times: Pictures Of The Blizzard Of Feb. 1

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Pictures Of The Blizzard Of Feb. 1

How does the Blizzard of Feb. 1, 2015, compare with those of previous decades to hit the Dorchester area?

For those old enough to remember more than five decades or more, this one probably cracks the top 20 list. It doesn't match the severity of the blizzard of Christmas 2009, or the blizzard of 1978, as was mentioned on our Facebook page earlier today. It certainly doesn't touch the blizzards of the 1950s that made Nebraska look like Antarctica.

Still, this storm is going to be talked about for a while, if only for the fact that the weather experts were forecasting only 1-3 inches just a few hours before the first flakes fell on Saturday, Jan. 31.

We are told many of Dorchester's streets are still impassable and that the county roads are just plain treacherous. Howling northwest winds are drifting shut passages that were opened just minutes earlier.

Because you should be staying put until conditions are safe, here are some of the pictures of the Dorchester area today that we've found on Facebook, and others that were e-mailed to the Times. (Click on each picture for a better view.)

4 comments:

Don HoffmanFebruary 1, 2015 at 7:28 PM
Thanks for the look around town that we have all been dying to go see. This was a nice "virtual" tour that most of us would have had to walk home from if we had done it in person.
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David the BohunkFebruary 2, 2015 at 3:41 PM
Blizzard of 1888 and Blizzard of 1949. Czech them out on Google.
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cynical richardFebruary 2, 2015 at 6:12 PM
..... you guys are wimps ........................... my cattle and i didnt even notice the weather had changed ........................... my wife sits on her rump and watches us from the window ............................ tonight is her turn to break the ice on the stock tank ...................................... i am letting her come inside every two hours to warm up .......................................
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AnonymousFebruary 2, 2015 at 6:54 PM
Probably nothing you are seeing will compare to the 50's when I used to help my old buddy Rog Schmidt deliver news papers in the snow.
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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."