Randolph Cleanup and Restoration

In 1886, the Northern Nebraska Land Improvement Company decided to speculate on land sales after the announcement that the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Omaha Railroad would construct a railroad from Wayne, NE to northwest to Niobrara, NE.  The land sales which followed were the spark that began the development of the city of Randolph.  In 1890 another railroad was built from Sioux City, IA to O’Neill, NE and was called the Nebraska Northeast Railway which is now the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway which was located on the north edge of Randolph.  The town was named in honor of Lord Randolph Churchill of England and was incorporated as a municipality in May,1889. Randolph is a thriving farming community. In 1887 a school district was organized, and a small frame schoolhouse was built.  The first Catholic school was built in 1899 in Randolph.  Both schools operated K-12 operated until 1970. Today Randolph has 2 schools the Randolph Public Elementary School and Randolph Public High School, between the 2 schools they house 268 students from k-12^th grades. Four churches were established in Randolph in the late 1880’s and early 1890’s. Randolph is a city in Cedar County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 944 at the 2010 census. It refers to itself as "The Honey Capital of the Nation" due to the per-capita number of bee keeping families. The Dominisse family found life as a beekeeper has been a sweet journey. Dominisse family started as one of the original honey farms in Randolph in the early 1940s when the town became known as the “Honey Capital of the Nation.” It's name ‘Honey Capital’ because we had the highest percentage of bees per capita in the United States. The big advancement of bees was World War II when sugar was in shortage. In those years, after a summer of producing honey, the hives were winterized - on a hope that enough bees would survive to start the process again. In the spring, queen bees were purchased from the West Coast and mailed to Nebraska to replace winter losses. In 1971 they found that by shipping bees to Texas in an effort to minimize winter losses would be a good fit. In 1985, a portion of bees were sent to North Dakota to produce sunflower, clover, canola and buckwheat honey.