Dispatch
In late 1869 a group of Dutch-speaking
settlers from Pella, Iowa, began taking homesteads along Oak Creek,
in what is now northwestern Mitchell, northeastern Osborne, southeastern
Smith, and southwestern Jewell counties, starting at the creek's
confluence with the North Fork Solomon River and progressing northward.
The next year a colony of settlers from Holland, Michigan, called
the Rotterdam Colony, also arrived. In 1871 the Rotterdam Post
Office was first established in northeastern Osborne County to
service the growing community. Twenty years later this post office
was later renamed Dispatch (after the way the mail was "dispatched"
by horseback) and moved to a county road intersection on the Smith-Jewell
County line that became the center of the Dispatch community.
Dispatch had at one time two stores
and other businesses going. The post office was closed in 1891
and the Great Depression and subsequent World War II aided in
the decline of the community. At present the Dutch Christian Reformed
Church still operates at the site of Dispatch, and descendants
of those first settlers living in the area still speak the Dutch
language.
Sources
Information from Von Rothenberger
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