Andersenville, Washington County, Nebraska Historic Towns: Andersenville Historic Towns: Andersenville -Courtesy of Washington County Nebraska History, 1980 Shortly before the community of Orum was established, there was a settlement eight miles west of Blair and a mile north, in the neighborhood of the present Immanuel Lutheran Church of Orum. It is not known exactly when the village was started, but the earliest land records include the deeding in 1874 of 2 acres in the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 3 to the Lutheran Cemetery Association by Niels Andersen. From 1880 to 1882 there were land purchases from the Missouri Valley Land Company by Niels Andersen, Anders Larsen, S.M. Barrett, Mathias Mathiesen, and John Hansen. Soon after, Anders Larsen sold his to his brother Mads Peter Larsen, and Niels Andersen sold a piece to John J. Sierk. It was all originally railroad land. In 1884, Niels Andersen deeded two acres to St. Paul's Lutheran Evangelical congregation and their church was built on that land, which adjoined the cemetery. Niels operated a store in the neighborhood, and there was also a blacksmith shop. There is no record of any other business there, although the Blair Cheese Company purchased a site on the north side of the section from John Hansen in 1886 and that business flourished for about ten years. There were at one time as many as a dozen houses in Andersenville, going east from the church and cemetery, and some were up on the hill north of the others. Some of the houses were said to have been occupied by old people - parents of young Danish immigrants who had become established and sent for their parents. A large parsonage was built near the church in 1888 and this remained standing until the late 1950's when it was bought and torn down for the lumber. Except for the Andersen family, the pastor, and the blacksmith and his family (a man named Christ "Red" Christensen, because of his red hair and beard) there is little or no record of the actual residents of the village. The Andersen house remained for many years, occupied by Walter Andersen (a son of Niels) and Nina Andersen. Walter's garage, located approximately where the old store had been, was the last Andersenville building to go. In 1890, Niels Andersen sold his business to Robert Orum, a Danish immigrant from Omaha with whom Niels had briefly been in partnership, and Orum moved the business to the present location of the village named for him; a mile east and half mile south of Andersenville. This was the beginning of the end for Andersenville, as the houses gradually were abandoned or moved off, and by the turn of the century most of the settlement had disappeared. Only the church and cemetery remain from the Andersenville era, and both are now identified with Orum. Back to Top