Dorchester Times: Cambridge, Neb. Proves Small Rural Towns Can Thrive

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Cambridge, Neb. Proves Small Rural Towns Can Thrive

Small, rural towns can thrive in 2015. And Cambridge, Neb. (pop.1,063) is proving it.

Located in Furnas County in southwest Nebraska -- 25 miles east of McCook and more than 50 miles south of Interstate 80 -- Cambridge has earned designation in the Nebraska Department of Economic Development’s Certified Leadership Community Program. It is the fifth community to earn certification, joining Tecumseh, Madison, Central City and Neligh.

Cambridge has amassed an impressive list of achievements:

• Ten new businesses have opened since 2010.
• A new 77-acre Harvest Meadows Subdivision is home to two new businesses and six new homes (two under contract).
• To date, 17 businesses have been awarded $60,440 from the Facade Grant Program, which has helped create improvements valued over $147,906
• A Down Payment Assistance Program has made seven low-interest loans totaling $121,800 to individuals and families to purchase or build homes in Cambridge.
• The community’s Economic Development program oversees a Revolving Loan Fund to encourage business development. Currently, $62,968.59 in low-interest loans have been made to seven local businesses.
• Economic Development also operates an Internship Program, offering $1,000 grants to local businesses as an incentive to hire interns. To date, eight businesses have taken advantage of the program.
• The first College and Career Fair was hosted by Cambridge Economic Development in October 2014. The event featured 20 businesses and colleges and attracted 140 students from four area high schools.

The Nebraska Department of Economic Development created their Leadership Community Program in 2011 with the purpose of helping smaller Nebraska communities deal head-on with challenges and change. Communities must demonstrate having a solid planning and implementation process in place. Communities also must actively take advantage of technology, or be willing to learn to meet program objectives.

Applicant communities are evaluated in: community involvement; strategic planning; community planning and zoning; business and technology development; incentives and implementation.

Cambridge has proven if you want to improve your small town, a little energy and initiative and smarts can get you there. (We thank the reader who sent this information to our e-mail.)

For information about the Certified Leadership Development Community Program, contact Kelly Gewecke at kelly.gewecke@nebraska.gov, (308) 627-3151, or visit http://neded.org/community/community-info/community-improvement/leadership-community.

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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."