Dorchester Times: Looking Back: Dorchester's Main Street -- South Side

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Looking Back: Dorchester's Main Street -- South Side

The photo at the right shows Dorchester's bustling main street (Washington Avenue) as it appeared in the 1920s.

The image is from a 1929 postcard.

The photo shows the South Side Garage, located on the west side of the block that sits between Dorchester's 6th and 7th Streets (next to the modern-day car wash).

Henry Sehnert owned and operated the South Side Garage from 1925 to 1930, before moving north to the other side of the street, where he would operate his Ford garage for half a century.

The South Side Garage was located near the present-day car wash.

Also housed in this building, in later years, was: Floyd Beck's John Deere dealership; the Dorchester skating rink; and Bob Wanek's furniture storage warehouse.

Today's Village Hall can clearly be seen in the photo, looking north.

At the time the picture was taken, the corner building actually housed Citizen's State Bank -- Dorchester oldest continuous business, despite the name change.

Also pictured is the U.S. Post Office, as well as the Masonic and Good Fellows Hall, which occupied the second floor of today's Village Hall building.

Prior to the 1920s (see photos on the left side), the south side of main street was home to Skinkle Cafe and the H. Oetkin Machine Shop, according to a 1914-1920 map of Dorchester.

Just north of the machine shop were Ireland's Dry Goods and Grocery and Randell's Shoe Shop.

Continuing north up main street -- separated by the narrow alley and present-day bank drive-through -- were the Bank of Dorchester and Dr. Waller's Drug Store.

In later years, these buildings would house businesses such as the Dorchester opera house, a second fire department station, Dick's Auto Body and Repair, and Max Harling's "Brand X" tractor repair.

On the east side of the street on the same block -- circa the 1920s -- sat the Commercial Hotel; Cookus Blacksmith; Parker's Cream and Poultry; the Chamber of Commerce; City Hall; Dillon's Blue Front Cafe; and Malek's Butcher Shop.

Dorchester's main street was a hub of business activity and free enterprise.

We are certain that Times' readers would enjoy hearing feedback (in the comments section below) from residents -- past or present -- who have stories from friends or family about Dorchester's early days.

1 comment:

AnonymousSeptember 16, 2024 at 9:43 PM
My Granduncle, John Burgess had a harness shop just south of where the current Post Office is. Sometime before 1910 until after 1940 he ran this harness shop. He started being a general hardware man in the thirties too. Sometime just after World War II he moved to Kansas City for a while and then moved to Minden to start Burgess Well Drilling with his sons.

So he had a business on main street for over thirty years.

He was the eldest son of Saline County Pioneers William H. Burgess and Annie Hollier Burgess. One of his little sisters, Roselia Burgess Pavlish was my great grandmother.

I knew Johnny and he always visited when in Dorchester and came often. He and his wife, Alice Copely are buried in Minden. He met her in Webster County, where he learned harness making from his Uncle Charles who lived in Potsdam, Nebraska. He was born in England, but lived most of his life in Saline County.

JR Wolfe
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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."