Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUNDUP: Village Dog Catcher Wanted, Ball Schedules Now Online

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

NEWS ROUNDUP: Village Dog Catcher Wanted, Ball Schedules Now Online

Village Dogcatcher Wanted Immediately: It looks like Fido's days of roaming Dorchester at his leisure are coming to an end. The Village of Dorchester is looking to hire a dogcatcher to round up those stray doggies, as well as those who are allowed to run at large by careless owners. Anyone interested in the job should apply at Village Hall or call 402‐946‐3201.

Dorchester Baseball and Softball Schedules Online: We reported earlier on the Dorchester baseball and softball teams, whose seasons are already underway despite the recent wet weather. For those of you who asked to see the full schedule for both teams, the Village of Dorchester has the schedules linked to its site. Click here for the boys' schedule and click here for the girls' schedule. For those interested in the little kids' t-ball schedule, that can be found here.

How About A 'Bike To School Week' For DPS?: The Friend Sentinel reports that Friend Elementary School students were recently encouraged to ride their bikes to school. Ride your bike to school day focused on teaching students hand signals, where to ride their bikes on the road, and how to let pedestrians cross first. Staff from the health clinic and hospital volunteered to help. This sounds like a good idea for Dorchester. Perhaps a "Bike to School Week"? Nebraska ranks as having the 21st highest percent of obese and overweight children in the U.S., with 31.5% of Nebraska children measured as obese or overweight. In a community as safe as Dorchester, with little traffic and almost no crime, it makes sense to encourage more kids to bike or walk to school.

2 comments:

AnonymousMay 17, 2016 at 9:19 PM
I hereby donate a bunch of grapes to the new dog catcher if he promises to feed them to my neighbor's yelping furbag
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AnonymousMay 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM
I don't think the town needs to hire a dog catcher. This is a waste of money, and if they have money to waste, why not reduce or eliminate the service charge on our electric bill? I think they make enough money off the sewer, water, and electric they charge every month that they don't need a service charge.
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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."