
Chester Nebraska Online Museum
Welcome to an online collection of artifacts from through Chester’s history. Many of these have been collected over the years and rather than just stay hidden in filing cabinets and boxes, I thought it would be good to display them until (hopefully!) one day Chester gets a museum of its own.
Do you have something in your collection to share? Send a clear photo and short description via email and we’ll add it!
Chester Nebraska School Postcard - 1953
Here’s a clear postcard showing the Chester Nebraska school in the mid-50s. The card also mentions that it is the “Home of Six Man Foot Ball”.
From Wikipedia: Six-man football was developed in 1934 by Stephen Epler in Chester, Nebraska, as an alternative means for small high schools to field a football team during the Great Depression. The first game was played on Thursday, September 27, 1934, at the Hebron, Nebraska Athletic Gridiron, under the lights, with a crowd of almost 1000 watching. This game was played so that coaches all over Kansas and Nebraska could see if they wanted to try this new game of six-man. The two teams playing in the game were the combined team from Hardy-Chester (“Hard-Chests”) and a combined team from Belvidere–Alexandria (“Belvalex”). The two teams had two weeks to practice prior to this game; the two teams played to a 19-19 tie.[1] After that night, rules for the game were distributed to about 60,000 coaches in the United States.[2]
It was G.D. Van Cleef
Hi –
I am Brad Brown, son of Harold E. Brown who grew up in Chester. I have a copy of The Chester Herald Souvenir Number dated January First 1914.
It’s quite interesting with lots of pics, adverts and articles about Chester’s beginning years. If you’re interested in receiving a copy of it, I could possibly photograph each of its 25 or so pages and send it to you if you don’t already have it. My Dad got it from Dale Duey, a friend of his who he grew up with in Chester.
best regards,
Brad Brown
I was born Dec 10th 1944 and named Chester and did not know why until today