Swedeburg Covenant Church

   A church, a cluster of houses and a few streets five miles south of Wahoo on

highway # 77 (now Saunders County Rd; 'CR 17')are reminders of a hustling pioneer village named, appropriately, Swedeburg. According to the United States Survey the site is officially "on the southwest corner of Section 33, Township 14, Range 7, East of the 6th Principal Meridian." It was platted by Pioneer-Site Company.

The church is on Ash Street, the former post office was on Second Street, and the

intersection of Second and Maple was the center of the business district in the early 1900's.

Oak, Elm and Spruce Streets are also shown on the village map.

   According to written records, the first immigrants to arrive in this area were Swedish and took homesteads south and west of the future town site in July of 1869. First there were nine people, one of whom was a woman, Mrs. Nels Johnson. Soon there were thirty families and by fall another hundred families had arrived. Many came from the part of Sweden called Kristianstad Lan. A record written by N.A. Aspengren tells about his arrival in company with Lars Martinson. They had known Nils Berggren who came from Sweden earlier, and they went to his homestead. Nels Eliason and John Erickson had also gone to the Berggren home. Together the four walked south to look for homestead sites. Mr. Aspengren's description of the land is typical of what many a pioneer must have seen. His description is as follows:

"When we looked over these bare hills for the first time, there was not a
human dwelling to be found. We each took a homestead (80A) and at once
prepared to build some sort of shelter against wind and rain. The usual
method was to dig a hole in the hillside and cover it with grass and brush
which had been brought from a neighboring ravine."

   Some of the other names of those pioneers who arrived that first year were Nels Jonson,

Truls Person, Hans Hockinson, Nels Gibson, Jons Martinson, A.G. Quick, Bengt and Oke Swensen, Peter Olson, A.G. Olson, Hans Hanson.

   As the townsite was developed, there were two general stores, a hardware store, a drug store, a blacksmith shop, a barbershop, two garages, a cream station, a shoeshop, a bank, a postoffice, two elevators, a lumber yard, stockyards, and a train depot. A school was built outside of the main part of the village and two churches were built south of town. Later the Covenant Church relocated in the town. Buildings and businesses are nothing without people. The first general store was started by John and Augustinus Erickson, followed by Fritz Eliason and then as a Farmers Union Store, it was operated by Juno Larson, Charlie Wieland, Joe Trutna. The hardware store was opened by Theo Huerlin and Charlie Lewis, later operated by Hans Swanson and Albert Hedlund. Philip Thulin and Ted Robbins were in the barber shop and the cream station, the blacksmith shop was run by Sam Peterson. C.E. Danielson came from Omaha in 1909 and opened the second general store.

The garages were run by Bill Harold, Alfred Johnson, Raleigh Johnson,

Eric Palmer and Emil Eliason, the shoeshop by William Anderson.

   The first mail came into this settlement by Pony Express and it was left at the John Nelson home north of the Lutheran Church. The post office was opened in the Erickson store August 19, 1873. Jerome Barnell was the first postmaster, succeeded in 1875 by John Erickson, then Fritz Eliason. It was moved to the Danielson store when he became postmaster. Later it was moved to a home where Ethel Fjellin and later Florence Olson were post mistresses. A rural mail route was established and Alfred Anderson was the first carrier. He was followed by Pat Dahlgren, Fritz Eliason and Virgil Freeman.

   The State Bank of Swedeburg was chartered June 29, 1907, and opened for business on October 7. J.J. Johnson was president, Andrew Carlson vice-president, John Erickson and then Frans Johnson were cashiers. It, too, operated out of the general store and later from a new brick building across the street.

   The school first was a one-room grade school that served a large area and many students. In 1916, a new two room ten-grade school opened across the road and the old building was moved into town to be used as a garage. The school became an eighth grade school in 1944 and was closed on June 10, 1967 when the district became a part of the Wahoo Schools.

School District #109 at Swedeburg closed in 1967

   The Chicago Northwestern Railroad came through in 1886 and

it was an important link for communication and transportation.

Six trains went through daily carrying mail, passengers, supplies, grain and livestock.

The mail was taken by wheelbarrow to the post office.

Many young people went to Wahoo by train to attend high school.

Station masters have been Mr. Gunter, Mr. Speicher, Mr. Burwell and probably others.

Olaf Hockinson and Nels Mays bought and sold livestock.

Railroad station in Swedeburg.

   The elevators operated for many years and were located between the business area and the railway station. The Farmer's Union Elevator was once the Updike Elevator and, besides the grain business, sold coal. The Nye-Schneider-Fowler Elevator was the south elevator and was also the lumber yard. Some of the managers were John Anderson, John Martinson, Bill Worth, Albin Pearson, Al Thulin.

Elevator, Lumberyard and offices of the Nye-Schneider-Fowler Company, Swedeburg 1915

Swedeburg School Dist. #109 1923 A street in early Swedeburg. Interior of Danielson Store, Swedeburg    Highway #77 first went through Swedeburg. It was later re-routed a mile west and the village was by-passed. Some years later its route was again changed and it now goes on the east edge of the town. That 'changed route' is now known as Saunders County Rd. 'CR 17'      A fire in the late 20's (probably 1929) destroyed the businesses along the north side of the main street, the elevators had closed, depot service had been discontinued, and on October 20, 1931 the bank was taken over by the State Department of Banking. These disasters signaled the decline of the village. The Danielson store remained open until 1947 and was opened by Mr. Mobly later. He sold out to Mr. Harold Peterson but it has been closed for many years. The rural route out of Swedeburg was discontinued in 1950 and the post office was closed in 1972. The Chicago Northwestern Railway train made the final run on September 1, 1981, and the tracks have been removed. However, both the Lutheran and the Covenant Churches continue to hold services and the houses are all occupied.   These are the historical facts about a town much like any pioneer town, but what they really tell are about the people who helped carve out a town. They mastered a new language, they became farmers and businessmen and they had a sense of community. Historical facts don't tell about the struggle against the elements -- rattlesnakes in the dugouts, prairie fires, grasshoppers, drouth. They don't tell about the profound and not-so-profound discussions around the pot-bellied stove in Erickson's store, the wrestling matches in the schoolhouse-made-into-a-garage, the sack of candy that Mrs. Danielson slipped into the grocery sack whenever dad paid the charge account, the old gentleman who peddled fresh fish and warm-from-the-factory peanut butter from Lincoln, the tall tales spun by the blacksmith, the rural mail carrier who dramatically told of starting out as the sun came up and returning as the sun was setting and he had gone one mile east and one mile west through deep snow. Nor do they tell of the men who scooped more than a mile of road to get the mail into town during the 1936 blizzard or of the miles walked to deliver the mail, or the mud fought by the rural mail carrier. Many other people and incidents could be related, and we remember with respect all these people who shaped our community and our very lives.   Swedeburg Covenant Church -"new" building built in 1909 SWEDEBURG COVENANT CHURCH    The year was 1876, and a group of Swedish immigrants met in Swedeburg, Nebraska, to organize a new church. That year of 1876 the United States was celebrating its centennial, Rutherford B. Hayes was nominated for the presidency, Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone, the linotype was first used and the incandescent lamp was yet to be invented by Edison. Thus we see its place in history. See our "ABOUT US" Page for more of the history of our church webservices, design & hosting provided by www.BuildingBESTwebsites.com