COLLEGE VIEW

COLLEGE VIEW, NEBRASKA HISTORY

After the coming of Union College, like University Place and Bethany, College View would grow up around an institution. At this time, the area where the campus was located was a cornfield and the area where Jorgensen Hall and the church is located was a pasture. The locating committee decided on the site where College View was to be layed out and the Board of Trustees of the college named the college and the town. The six original owners of the land on which the town and college inhabited was layed out by John & Tryphena McKay, Jacob & Sarah Unangst, David and Tillie May, and J. M. Morrison & wife Flora who purchased John McKay's 80 acres. This area roughly was from 48th to 56th & Pioneers to Calvert & 48th West to 40th Street to Calvert. An action by the Board was to call Prescott Street Union Avenue and 48th Street College Street. Other streets were to be named after litterary men: Lowell, Bancroft, Cooper.

Enoch Jenkins built the first structure in College View and people came to help build the new college and town. People who brought covered wagons helped haul supplies from the Burlington Railroad and Lincoln. As the college building progressed the men moonlighted building their own houses.

The center of the business district was 48th & Prescott. Zalmon Nicola was one of the early arrivals from Iowa with thoughts of establishing a store, and purchased a lot on the southwest corner of 48th & Prescott after learning the streetcar would be building up Prescott from the west. He built a two story building which housed a store, postoffice, his personal residence and the upstairs was a meeting hall which took the place of meeting in W.C.Sisley's barn. C. W. Miller built at Meredith and 47th Street in the valley which he claimed was the first completed dwelling.

Population of the town was increasing by leaps and bounds. A need was created for local goverment, fire protection, there were no sidewalks, and animals of all kinds were loose. A meeting was called in the gym of the College Building on April 6th, 1892 with A. R. Henry elected chairman and C.C. Lewis, professor of English to be secretary. It was then voted to incorporate the town as a village. recommended as trustees were: W.C. Sisley, Chairman, in absence of A.R. Henry, J. D. Morton, W. F. Henton, Zalmon Nicola, E. N. Jenkins, and J. D, Unangst. Morton was named chairman of council. Joe Sutherland was named chairman the next year. Other officers were C. C. Lewis, clerk, treasurer Zalmon Nicola, and marshall Myron Jenkins.

In March, 1893, the town had over 1,000 population and was legally entitled to organize as a city of the second class. There was some question about this as a city government if this would not lead to a union of church and state but on April 1893 it was voted to make College View a city of the second class with J. D. Morton as Mayor, treasurer Joe Sutherland, clerk, C. C. Lewis, and councilmen Newton, Morrison, Herzer, Nicoloa, Stansberry, Diamond, And Henton. As M. W. Newton was a college surveyor, he was elected as city engineer to build the streets, bridges, & culverts as their was no pavement in the City until 1916. 48th & Prescott streets were dust beds in summer and mud-holes in springtime. Heavy laden wagons stalled on 48th Street in front of the campus, and cinders from the power plant were used in the holes.

Every male from 21 to 50 were to perform two days of labor from April to November. A political contest insued. Some thought the faculty had an advantage in serving on the council as they could get students to vote for them. The older students thought even though they were not residence, the faculty could serve on the council because they were American citizens. A regulation was passed that lot owners were required to build three stringer boardwalks using 1" boards, but in 1900 cinders were used. In 1908, the street numbering system that Lincoln used was adopted by the College View Council. In 1892, it was the marshalls job to light the street lights. In 1905, a gasoline mantle lamp was used until 1912 then electric replaced the gasoline lamp complements of the street car company.

The first electric street car line ran from Lincoln to 27th & Sumner Streets then East to 30th Street then South to St. Thomas Orphanage then East down Prescott to 48th Street. After 1892, when Normal School was built Northeast of the College, the "Low Line" was built East on South Street to Normal, then South to Van Dorn, West to 48th Street and South to Prescott. Then the Prescott line was abandoned. In 1908, the citizen's Inter urban or "High Line" was built out of Sheridan Blvd and Calvert Street to 48th. This line replaced the "Low Line" with always the terminus at 48th & Prescott. In 1946, the "High Line" was replaced with bus service.

Dr. Everett Dick writes; when he first came to Union College in 1913, he remembers seeing crated washing machines, manufactured by Huenergardt factory at 48th & Lowell Streets, on the dock waiting to be delivered on the freight Inter Urban line. The streetcar was very important to College View as farmers could put their horses in the livery stable and ride to town on the streetcar and enjoy shopping, circuses and fairs. Much freight was hauled on the lines and a freight depot was built near Prescott Street West of the old gas storage pit. The Christian Record sent out its monthly issue of magazines by streetcar. The streetcar freight engine pushed a railway car of coal or oil from the Rock Island tracks to the Sanitarium powerhouse at 49th & Calvert. The Harvey Enslow Lumber Company built a warm waiting room with clock for waiting passengers.

The question came up about fire protection or the lack therof. The council asked Professor M. W. Newton, city engineer to try out a secondhand chemical pump for $150 from a person from Lincoln. He pronounced the unit satisfactory and on the same day also bought a hook and ladder wagon. Uncle Joe Sutherland offered to house the units in the college powerhouse free of charge. On May 6th, 1896, a fire department was established with M. W. Newton named as fire chief. In 1898, they built a new 14' x 30' fire station on the southwest corner of the campus. Later a hose cart and pumper was purchased and cisterns were dug on the edge of main streets. Occasionally, buckets and ladders were borrowed by the citizens and were not returned. This meant they had to be policed up and put under lock and key. In 1903, 10 men formed a professional fire fighting crew. In October 1903, the powerhouse caught fire and the pumper would not work. They could do nothing but let it burn and this was with a cistern in easy reach.

Until 1900, the college dinner bell was the fire bell but a new bell was purchased for that purpose and for a 9:00 curfew. Every person under the age of 21 had to be off the streets by 9:00. Also, one of the first ordinances passed was that no liquor could be sold in the city limits due to the strict religious beliefs of the Adventists. The early settlers of College view were individualistic and liberty-loving and were not easily handled. College view and Union College had the dubious distinction of being the only Seventh-day Adventist College to have a jail on campus. In 1910, a speed limit of 10 mile per hr. was established for the new motor cars.

Webmaster: Roger W. Miner at minerland@neb.rr.com

Last modified : January 1st, 2007

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