Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUNDUP: City Slickers Grill, Water Park Rumors

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

NEWS ROUNDUP: City Slickers Grill, Water Park Rumors

Here is the latest news fit to print:

City Slickers' New Grill Is Nearly Ready: Back in November, Dorchester area residents were biting their nails in anticipation, awaiting the completion of the renovation at Dorchester's City Slickers Bar and Grill. Then a fire broke out at the establishment formerly known as Joe's Place. Whlle the bar itself has been reopened for over a month, the new grill has been on hold. Now the Times has learned from City Slickers' social media account that Dorchester's favorite establishment will soon have its new grill up in running, likely within days. The new-and-improved City Slickers' features: a new kitchen; much larger dining area, with many tables separate from the bar area for a pleasant dining experience; and a dance floor with a band/DJ area. Many dollars have been poured into City Slickers for its new interior and structural reinforcements. If you haven't seen inside City Slickers within the past month, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Water Park Coming To Dorchester?: The word is that a new water park may soon be coming to Dorchester. This would certainly be an entertainment boon for area kids, if true. We don't have any details and at this point, there is nobody we spoke to willing to confirm or deny such plans. But a couple of sources say discussions are at least in the early stages and that more could be known in the coming weeks or months. Stay tuned.

A Needless Loss Of Life In Omaha: It's heartbreaking to hear the news about the 19-year-old drunk driver who killed 21-year-old Sarah Root in Omaha two weekends ago. Root had just graduated from Bellevue University with a 4.0 GPA, while the inebriated Eswin Mejia was street racing under the influence, with a blood-alcohol level of .241 and driving on a suspended license, when he slammed into Root's SUV as it was stopped at an Omaha intersection. It's bad enough Mejia is out of jail on just $5,000 after a judge set his bond too low. It also appears Mejia was in the United States illegally -- he's what we used to call an illegal alien. His taxpayer-funded attorney, Owais Tomas Campbell, excuses illegal immigration and says that shouldn't be an issue, while Miss Root's family knows that if immigration law was enforced, this tragedy would not have occurred. News like this makes it painfully obvious why the brash, boisterous Donald Trump is leading in the polls. Many Americans have had enough. (UPDATE: Thanks to the lenient judge, the Omaha police department’s refusal to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ICE’s failure to issue a detainer, illegal alien murderer Eswin Mejia is on the run and may never serve time for killing 21-year-old Sarah Root. Click here for the latest.)

4 comments:

AnonymousFebruary 10, 2016 at 10:40 AM
A waterpark in Dorchester? Right, Good one. Believe when I see it.
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AnonymousFebruary 10, 2016 at 11:03 AM
why waste the money and who's going to maintain the water park????????????
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StudlyFebruary 10, 2016 at 5:52 PM
I like the idea of a water park and if its private money, why the heck not. I sure would have enjoyed it when I was in town as a kid. Best part is you won't need to post a sign that says "welcome to our OOL. Notice there is no "P" in it. Please keep it that way." When we went to a local pool last summer, it was more urine than it was water. Who wants to swim in other peoples bath water?!
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JoyceFebruary 17, 2016 at 7:06 PM
#1 I am glad to hear that City Slickers is close to opening. I think our little village needs it and as one, I've missed it.
#2 Yea for people trying to do something positive for our youth! I hope it goes and many Dorchester kids get to enjoy it.
#3 I am so sorry about the young student that was killed by a drunk driver and my prayers go out to her family. I don't understand our tolerance for illegal immigrants. Why a 5000.00 dollar bail??? How has our country...the USA...become so broken?
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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."