The name Dana is a poetic reference to Denmark, homeland of the immigrants who founded the college. The institutions worked together until Trinity ultimately merged with Wartburg Seminary in Iowa. Dana served as a four-year liberal arts college affiliated with the Lutheran Church for over 125 years. At its peak, Dana College enrolled over 1,000 students from across the United States and across the globe. Its rich academic and cultural heritage made a significant impact on the region, yet fiscal challenges at the turn of the 21st Century led to its closing in 2010.
]]>Traditionally known as the Cuming City Cemetery, this eleven-acre tract of land was set aside in 1976 primarily as a preserve for native vegetation. Never plowed, this prairie looks much like it did to the Indians and to the first white men who settled Nebraska in the 1850's. Grasses such as big and little bluestem, Indian grass, and side-oats grama still grow here. Now owned by Dana College, the site was acquired with the assistance of the Nature Conservancy and the Cuming City Cemetery Association.
Part of this plot is reserved as a burial ground for the descendants of Lewis M. Kline, pioneer newspaperman who founded Cuming City in 1855. By 1857 the town boasted 53 homes, 3 stores, and 3 hotels. It disappeared in the 1870's, when most of its citizens moved to Blair on the new railroad. The main north-south street of the old town site of Cuming City is now U.W. Highway 73, 1 1/4 miles southeast of here. The Kline family, which had its first burial here in 1857, donated this acreage to Cuming City for a cemetery. Many of those buried here were later removed to the Blair Cemetery where maintenance is provided.
]]>Religious institutions have played an important role in the history of Nebraska. During the frontier period, churches fulfilled both the spiritual and social needs of the early inhabitants. The Congregational Church was one of Nebraska's pioneer denominations. The Reverend Reuben Gaylord brought Congregationalism to Washington County in 1856 and the church operated an early institution of higher learning, the "Nebraska University" at Fontenelle, 1858-1872.
The Congregational Church of Blair was organized with eight communicants on February 10, 1870, less than a year after John I. Blair auctioned the original town lots a few blocks north of this site. For a time, the Reverend Marshall Tingley, who had come from Sioux City, conducted services in the courthouse or in private homes.
On November 22, 1874, a 28 by 40 foot sanctuary, characteristic of the Carpenter-gothic style of architecture, was dedicated on this site. Additions and improvements have occurred throughout the years but the original structure, along with many interior furnishings, has remained in use for more than a century as a center for worship and fellowship. The style and simplicity of this pioneer Congregational Church provides a fitting memorial to Washington County's religious heritage.
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