Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUND-UP: Historic Flooding Continues

Saturday, March 16, 2019

NEWS ROUND-UP: Historic Flooding Continues

Crete's Tuxedo Park bridge as of Friday, March 15.

Here are the latest developments from the Dorchester metro area:

Record Flooding Continues: Historic flooding continues to ravage our surrounding rivers and creeks. Both the West Fork of the Big Blue north of Dorchester, and Turkey Creek just south of town are swollen well outside thier banks to levels not seen in 50 years or more. The City of Crete, which borders the Big Blue River, has seen plenty of flooding. Click here for Channel 8's story on Crete's flooding woes. That city's Tuxedo Park is underwater, as evidenced by the accompanying photo. As of 6:45 a.m. today (March 16), the river level was 29.67 feet, showing a decrease from a charted high of 30.68 feet late Friday night. Several Crete streets/intersections were flooded, but the waters are receding. Crete's Highway 33 bridge over the Blue remains open.

Dorchester Students Have Their Artwork in State Capitol: Dorcheter's Javier Cornejo (2nd grade) and Harmony Shepherd (12th grade) will represent Dorchester Public School with their artwork, which is on display in the lower rotunda of the State Capitol building through March 30. Both of these talented Longhorns have been invited to attend a ceremony on March 30.

DPS Elementary School Team Wins Reading Competition: Dorchester Public School's top elementary student team (Hadley Brandt, Makenzi Beck, Ella Vyhnalek and Max Novak) recently won first place at the Saline County Reading Classic Competition. The team will participate in Nebraska's state competition on Saturday, March 30 at Tri-County High School.

Jacee Zoubek, Nate Cochnar Receive Basketball Honors: Congrats to Jacee Zoubek on being named to the Crossroads Conference 2nd team and Nathan Cochnar for being named CRC Conference Honorable Mention teams for basketball.

Hoffman Headed to State for Speech: Congratulations goes to Dorchester senior Daisha Hoffman for qualifying for state speech in poetry. She will compete on March 22, representing the Orange and Black in Kearney at UNK. Also, congrats to Holly Nigh for making finals at district speech.

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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."