Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUNDUP: DHS Girls Win Sixth Consecutive Game

Sunday, January 8, 2017

NEWS ROUNDUP: DHS Girls Win Sixth Consecutive Game

Here's what is trending in our area:

DHS Girls Win Six Straight: Don't look now, but Dorchester's lady Longhorns basketball team has won six straight games -- just as 8-4 Friend prepares to host DHS this Tuesday, Jan. 10. The Dorchester girls got off to a rocky start, losing to their first four opponents (only one of which was a fellow Class D-2 school, and that was top-ranked Exeter-Milligan). Under the tutelage of head coach Brandon Bruha, DHS has turned it around, most recently beating Sterling by 52-30 this past Thursday, which came on the heels of winning the Weeping Water Holiday Tournament. The Lady Longhorns have a favorable schedule ahead, as only Class D-1 Friend and Class D-2 Hampton have winning records as of today. If Dorchester's girls play hard and smart, the team could easily win 14 or 15 games this season and be a real contender in D-2.

Saline County Pheasants Forever Banquet Is Jan. 28: Saline County Chapter Pheasants Forever banquet will be Jan. 28 in Willber's Sokol Hall. 5:30 p.m. doors open; 7 p.m. meal. $60/membership and meal, $20/spouse, $10/youth. Jim Aschenbach, 402-477-6227.

Famous DeWitt Agribusiness Suffers Major Fire: A feed mill at Waldo Genetics in DeWitt was damaged during a fire on Friday night, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. The business' feed mill was destroyed and the business is contacting others to find alternative sources for animal feed, but that it will not affect business. Waldo Genetics was known as Waldo Farms until 2014, when it rebranded.

Orv's Grocery In Friend Closes: The Friend newspaper reports that Orv’s Grocery in Friend closed in December, leaving the town of over 1,000 people -- and 25 minutes from a major box store -- without a grocery store. Owner Vickie Himmelberg said she closed the store down on Dec. 17. She and her husband, Brian, purchased the store from his father, Orville Himmelberg in 1994. In recent years the store struggled to attract customers, which when added to increasing utility bills, forced the Himmelbergs to close up shop, despite their efforts to attract customers. Orv's owned a grocery store in Dorchester, as well, until the late 1980s, before the Dorchester mainstreet store re-opened as Torson's Grocery.

1 comment:

AnonymousJanuary 8, 2017 at 11:13 PM
About the Friend grocery store, a number of years ago a friend and I were driving through Friend and stopped to pick up a few items. They had whole chickens on sale advertised in the brochure they sent out to residents all over the county. We were going to buy a few, but were told that they were saving them for their regular customers. We were, OMG! Dorchester people! So no chickens for us. We left the store and neither one of us ever returned. So much for trying to attract customers!
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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."