Dorchester Times: Dorchester Main Street Improvements Coincide With Traffic Boom

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Dorchester Main Street Improvements Coincide With Traffic Boom

As Dorchester's reputation grows as top-notch venue for food, drink and music, its main street is seeing a lot more activity, including a face lift.

This comes at a time when the village's main street traffic is at its highest volume in the past decade.

Last month, the historic building that houses Dorchester's Village Hall and Donna's Hair Creations saw significant repair, resurfacing and repainting -- improving the building's aesthetic appeal. We commend the village board for making this much needed enhancement.

Shortly after that project, the owners of City Slickers Bar and Grill started work to resurface the face of the establishment, as well as the buildings they own to the north. Times' staff has been told from reliable sources that the improvements are set to be completed by the June 3 concert with big-time country music star Jerrod Niemann. (Some are calling Dorchester the "Little Nashville" of Nebraska.)

One reader on our Facebook site said: "It's awesome to see Jason and Kathy doing so much to improve our community," referring to City Slickers' exterior and interior renovations. "It will be exciting to show off our town at the street dance they are sponsoring in June," she added.

Some have expressed regret that metal will cover the 1880s brick facade -- and we agree that the original brick is best. But brick repair can cost many tens-of-thousands of dollars, which is difficult to justify for empty buildings. Our staff continues to support a housing and business plan at the village level to find ways to fill and improve main street buildings.

We strongly support the efforts being made by the owners of City Slickers, who have added new life to the village along with the presence of Big T's BBQ Pit Stop last summer.

According to a study by the Times, weekend traffic on Dorchester's three-block business district has surged 440% on Friday and Saturday nights compared to just 10 years ago, when the Times started publishing. The tallies were taken between the hours of 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday or Saturday evenings, when Dorchester's main street (Washington Ave.) tends to be its busiest.

The traffic count has increased by 1100% on Sunday evenings -- and even more on Sundays when Dorchester's Legion Hall hosts polka concerts, which on average attracts around 40 vehicles.

The increase in traffic can obviously be attributed to the success of the continued success of City Slickers and new success of Big T's BBQ Pit Stop.

The extra vehicles mean big dollars for Dorchester, even when using conservative estimates. We estimate that each vehicle on Dorchester's Main Street on a Friday or Saturday evening equals at least $30 spent in town on food, drinks, keno, donations, gasoline or something else.

1 comment:

AnonymousMay 4, 2017 at 10:57 PM
Great update guys
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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."