Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUNDUP: Alumni Tourney Successful, Museum Opens Next Sunday

Saturday, March 25, 2017

NEWS ROUNDUP: Alumni Tourney Successful, Museum Opens Next Sunday

Here is what is trending right now in the Dorchester area:

DHS Alumni Tourney Deemed Successful: It appears the March 17-19 Dorchester Alumni Basketball Tourney was quite successful. According to unofficial reports, DHS' athletics department raised around $2,000 from the event. Nearly 60 alumni took part in the three days of basketball action. According to Facebook feeds, the 1998-2005 team won the tourney, beating the 1989-2003 grads in the championship. Sponsors of the event were: Runza (Crete), Heath's Sporting Goods (Crete), Holly Well Drilling, First State Bank Dorchester; Stutzman Digging; The Well; Novak Auction Service; Farmers Cooperative; City Slickers Bar and Grill; Spring Creek Repair and Farm Supply; Big T's BBQ Pit Stop; Barley's Specialties; BZ Construction; Papik Seeds; Rains Simmentals; JR's Stor-All; Complete Ag; Tyser Auto Sales; and 5s Zoubek Racing.

DHS' Bailey Velder Signs With Doane University For Track: It appears Dorchester will soon have another college athlete in its ranks. DHS senior Bailey Velder has committed to Doane University to join the school's track and field team next school year. This marks the second standout DHS athlete to commit to a Nebraska institution. Last fall, Longhorn senior Jacee Weber signed to play volleyball for the Wayne State Wildcats. Good luck to both Bailey and Jacee as they continue to represent their community in collegiate athletics!

County Museum Opens For Season On Sunday, April 2: The Saline County Museum, located in south Dorchester just off Hwy. 33, will open Sunday, April 2, for the season. The museum will be open every Sunday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and will be open both Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. Admission is free and donations are accepted. A special event will be held Sunday, April 30, when the museum will host an Antique Appraisal Fair given by Tom Bassett of Lincoln. (It will be like Antiques Roadshow coming to Dorchester.) The museum will open at 1 p.m. that Sunday, and the fair will start at 2 p.m. There will be no charge for the event and three items will be allowed per person for Tom to appraise.

Red Cross Needs Blood: The American Red Cross has issued a call for type O negative and AB donations after severe weather in some parts of the country forced the cancellation of thousands of donations this month. Eligible donors are encouraged to give to help meet the constant need of patients. If you would like to help at this urgent time, contact Samantha Pollard with the American Red Cross Blood Services at (402) 321-3576 or samantha.pollard@redcross.org.

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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."