Dorchester Times: OUR COMMENTARY: Call Village Office About Marquee, Not The Times

Friday, January 8, 2016

OUR COMMENTARY: Call Village Office About Marquee, Not The Times

UPDATE: At 2 p.m. Friday, the Times received this update from Gloria Riley, Dorchester village clerk and treasurer. Ms. Riley wrote: "I understand there are questions concerning the Marquee. We are waiting on a company to install a new one. Please be patient. A new village website is in the works. More information to follow when available."

Good communication is key. We can all agree on that.

Customers like to be kept in the loop with updates from businesses. Parents appreciate notifications and constant contact from school officials.

And community residents want to be updated from their city officials and organizations.

That's why we agree with readers who've told us they want Dorchester's electronic marquee back on.

Installed in the spring of 2007, the orange-and-black electronic sign that now graces Dorchester's Main Street median displays the date, time and temperature, while also announcing upcoming town events and special messages, including birthday greetings to residents. The new marquee has not only added some extra livliness to Washington Avenue, it has served as an effective method of mass communication.

The marquee has not been operating for the past month.

But complaints to the Times won't help. We're just a blog.

Call the village office (402-946-3201) to connect with the folks who can do something about it.

1 comment:

East side SamJanuary 8, 2016 at 6:12 PM
No disrespect to the fine staff of the Dorchester blog, but this raises the question, why doesn't the Village of Dorchester have a website? Last time I checked, it is 2016. I'm sure the village pays its staff, likely with healthy retirement and health benefits, too. So they can't spend an hour a week working on a website to update the people of the town? Even a lousy Facebook page? Is this too much to ask? Even Friend has a website, sponsored by NPPD. Dorchester gets its wholesale power from NPPD, so they would provide funding if asked, I presume.

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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."