Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUND-UP: Village Takes Untidy Property Owner To Court; DPS Sixth Graders Say No To Drugs

Friday, November 27, 2020

NEWS ROUND-UP: Village Takes Untidy Property Owner To Court; DPS Sixth Graders Say No To Drugs

DPS Sixth Graders Say No to Drugs: Congratulations to the Dorchester's sixth grade class (pictured above) for graduating from the DARE program last week. School officials say they are very proud of the students' commitment to stay drug, alcohol, and violence free. The DARE program is a great resource and needed more than ever with today's rampant use of drugs, both soft and hard, throughout an often too-indifferent society. (Here's a local example of what goes wrong with drug use.)

Dorchester Takes Resident to Court for Untidy Property: The Village of Dorchester is starting to crack down on messy property owners with legal action. The Times has learned that a resident in the northwest quadrant of town has pleaded guilty of violating Dorchester Municipal Code 4-302. According to our research, that ordinance prohibits unkempt properties with overgrown vegetation and/or weeds, litter or other problems. It's good to see Dorchester leaders enforce the village rules. (Although we'd also like to see the town ordinances posted electronically on the village government's website so that residents have easy access to town code.)

Baby Barley is Dorchester's Newest Resident: On Nov. 20, Sam and LJ Barley welcomed into the world their second child -- a boy named John Brady. Congrats to the Barley family.

Dorchester's Thespian Talent: Dorchester Public School does a nice job utilizing its social media, keeping parents and the rest of the community in the loop. Recently, DPS posted this photo of the junior high theater cast, crew, and sponsors, as well as this shot of the high school's one-act cast, crew, and sponsors. Nice work from these budding actors and actresses.

1 comment:

Terry G.November 27, 2020 at 9:07 AM
Congrats to the Barleys!
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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."