Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUND-UP: Dan Tesar, Road Repair, Flour Mill History

Monday, June 24, 2019

NEWS ROUND-UP: Dan Tesar, Road Repair, Flour Mill History

DHS Alum Dan Tesar is Part of Shrine Bowl History: The Nebraska Shrine Bowl -- the annual gathering of the state's high school football standouts -- just completed its 61th game, with the first one being held in 1959. And according to the Omaha newspaper, DHS alum Dan Tesar is just one of nine former Shrine Bowl players to also coach in the Shrine Bowl. Tesar played in the Shrine Bowl in 1962, representing the Longhorns; in 2001, he was a coach, representing Tri County. The Shrine Bowl isn't quite the crowd draw it was back when Tesar played, when gatherings of 22,000 were common. Last year, the announced crowd was 4,575 and once the honor band played at halftime, the stands thinned out. The game needs to be held permanently at Memorial Stadium, we say.

Road Work to Begin in Saline County, Near Dorchester: The Nebraska Department of Transportation has announced its plans to do road repair in Saline County in the coming weeks. This Tuesday, June 25, state crews will begin a chip seal project on Hwy. 103 between Crete and Wilber, from Reference Post 33.2 to 42.7. Work is anticipated to take three days. NDOT also is planning chip seal projects beginning June 28 on Hwy. 15, three miles southwest of Dorchester and north of Dorchester from Reference Post 0 to 1. The work southwest of town is expected to take four days, weather permitting, while the north project should take only one day. One-lane traffic will be used in each place, with flaggers and a pilot car. Motorists should expect delays and are reminded to drive cautiously through work zones.

The 1877 King Iron Bridge near the Dewitt Mill.

Looking at the Role of Flour Mills in Saline County: Lincoln Journal Star historian Jim McKee recently wrote about the vital role that flour mills played as the most important industry in Nebraska in the late 1800s and early 1900s. "At one point there were nearly 150 in existence," McKee notes. These sites helped form communities and early electricity development. According to McKee, Swan City -- Saline County's first county seat -- saw Dunbar & Baker open the county’s first flouring mill around 1870 at the intersection of Swan Creek and Turkey Creek. It was reportedly “one of the finest flour mills in the state.” A few years later, in nearby DeWitt, the Suiter brothers started a mill of their own. After several setbacks and changes of ownership, the DeWitt In 1877 the King Iron Bridge Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, built a 255-foot bridge over the Blue River to accommodate traffic to the mill. It still stands today! While it no longer carries vehicular traffic, its site on an abandoned county road still qualifies it as “the oldest vehicular truss remaining” on its original site in the state.

1 comment:

AnonymousMarch 19, 2020 at 1:28 PM
Tesar was also assistant coach in 1984 and his son (Dan) played in 2000.
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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."