Dorchester Times: Cougar Spotted In Nearby York County: Report

Monday, November 27, 2017

Cougar Spotted In Nearby York County: Report

Since the early days of this blog, we've reported on area sightings of mountain lions.

Some of those sightings may have been false, but the frequent reports lend credibility to the fact the big cats have migrated eastward over recent years.

Now a homeowner in Waco has reported seeing a mountain lion in the area on Friday night. That's according to a wire report.

The York County Sheriff’s Office received the report just before midnight. The sighting was not confirmed.

Mountain lion sightings have been common in the area. Last September, a mountain lion and a dog tangled in the Waco area.

The first time the Dorchester Times ran a story on area sightings of mountain lions was in 2008.

What should you do if you do encounter a mountain lion? The experts with the National Parks Service say:

Remain calm! Enjoy the sighting.
Never run from a mountain lion. No one can outrun a mountain lion.
Do not crouch down; the lion has seen you long before you saw it.

If you happen to encounter a lion acting aggressively:

You must convince the lion that you are not prey and that you pose a threat to the animal.
If you have small children with you, pick them up and do all that you can to appear large -- hold your arms out.
Hold your ground, wave your arms, shout! If the lion still behaves aggressively, throw rocks at it.

1 comment:

AnonymousDecember 13, 2017 at 9:46 AM
I saw one when living South or Dorchester by Pleasant Hill in the early 2000s. Right around the time pawprints were seen at a gold course in Friend. A week later we saw it while driving down county road 1700 slowly crossing a fallow Field into turkey Creek. We called the saline county sheriff and reported it and they said there was no way we had seen what we said we saw. We told then we were still looking at it and they were dumbfounded.
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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."