THE SURVIVAL OF WILBER
By former mayor Glenn W. Zajicek
written in 1985

In about 1924 Mayor Alois Slepicka and his City Council, created Wilber's first paving district and over the next two years around 60 to 70% of Wilber's streets were paved. This is still one of the greatest assets that we have in our community today. All one has to do is drive though any community around the size of Wilber and this can easily be seen. We can be proud of our residential district. Many people have moved to Wilber because of this factor. Over the 40 year period between 1926 and 1966 only one and a half blocks of streets were hard surfaced. Between 1966 and 1978 over three miles of new streets were hard surfaced. This helped to create a housing boom in Wilber. When the census was taken in 1980 Wilber was one of the few communities in this area to show an increase in population.

The point I want to make is this: Over the years we have had many, many people work very hard for the good of our community. We look back at various projects like the court house, our schools, our utility system, nursing home, library, swimming pool our parks, Czech Village, museum, hotel etc. and we realize that the people that worked so hard to make these projects a reality were or are people just like us. If we want our community to prosper and to survive then we the people in our community have to keep working together to keep our community going. It does not matter whether a person is in business, school teacher, employee, factory worker or if they are retired- this is our community and if we do not keep it up, it goes down the drain. For instance: what if a person had a home valued at $50,000.00 today and in a few years this person wanted to sell this home and could only get $20,000.00 for it? Or if a person had a business valued at $150,000.00 today and in few years could sell it for only $50,000.00? These people would really be unhappy and of course it would not be their fault???? This will happen if we do not all join together to keep up the community. Look at what has just happened to farm land. Some of it has gone from $2,000.00 and acre to around $1,200.00. Again this could happen in Wilber with the farm population decreasing and the farm economy shrinking. We in Wilber are really going to be hurt.

The number one resource in Nebraska is still agriculture. The number two resource is industry. We can be thankful that we have industries like Petersen Manufacturing Co., Alpo, Farmland, Crete Mills, Wilber Manufacturing Co., Farmers Co-op's, and also in Wilber we have the Wilber Nursing Home which is not an industry but still has a payroll of 3/4 of a million dollars annually. The only way to get more industry is to work with Crete, DeWitt and the other communities in this area.

The number three resource in the State of Nebraska and also in Wilber is tourism. We have more tourist come to Wilber every year than any other community our size in this state. Every year at least 30,000 people visit Wilber during the year and during Czech Days. If every one that comes here would spent only $5.00 each (and many people spend more) that would bring into our community between $150,000.00 to $200,000.00 dollars a year. So that every 5 to 6 years this would mean at least "one million" dollars comes into our community. This would not come into our community if we did not promote tourism with the Czech Festival. So over the past 23 years over 5 million dollars has come into the community of Wilber. Now it is said that for every dollar that comes into a community from the outside it changes hands at least 2 to 3 times.

So that in the last 23 years between 10 to 15 million dollars have circulated in Wilber that would not be in the community if it were not for tourism caused by the Czech Festival. Take a million dollars out of the Wilber business district and we would have many empty buildings.

The business people and organizations in Wilber will have to decide now whether they want the community to keep going. If we do nothing and expect other people to do our work for us like a few of our business have done in the past -then the community will decay away. A few years ago when I was mayor I attended a Department of Economic Development meeting and the speaker made a couple of remarks which left a deep impression on me. He said: "The last 25 to 35 years have taken the toll on many communities under 1000 people." We do not have to travel too far from Wilber to see how true this is. Now his next statement really shook me. He said: "The next 25 to 35 years will take its toll on many communities under 3,000 people" So where does this leave Wilber??

Again we look back at the past and see all the hard work and money that has been put into our community to make it what it is today. (WE DO HAVE A WONDERFUL COMMUNITY) It will take this same hard work and money to pull us through into the future. We cannot rest on the past. There are many things we can do for ourselves. We need to upgrade our business district. We in business have to take a good look at ourselves and see where we can do better. The best advertising a business can have is to sell themselves, and their services to the public. Also a little cleaning up,paint, and attractive store windows will go a long way. We can walk past KD's flower shoppe and a few other well kept windows and see these results. It isn't going to be easy but we need to upgrade our business district. We need more support from the business people in the Chamber of Commerce. We need the support in the community of many of our organizations.

The Nebraska Czech's of Wilber need more support and help from the people of this community. Some people wonder what the Nebraska Czech of Wilber do with their money? The Czechs spent at least $6,000.00 to $10,000.00 a year promoting the Czech Festival and tourism. So over the past 23 years they have spent between $150,000.00 to $200,000.00 promoting Wilber. When the Wilber Bakery was going down the drain nobody seemed to care so the Nebraska Czechs saved the bakery and today we have one less empty building and a good business that employs a few people and brings people to town to buy the famous Wilber Rye Bread. We look at the Czech Museum and all the work and money that the Czech put into it. This is self supporting and no tax dollars are used to keep it going. The old opera house, depot and old school house went down the drain. People asked why didn't some do something about them. But talk is cheap and it takes action and work to get something done. So the last historical monument in Wilber was the old Wilber Hotel. This was saved by the Wilber Czechs. This also took many hours of free labor and hard earned money. (The Nebraska Czechs of Wilber also took lot of lip service from a few Wilber Citizens who did not bother to check to see what it was all about. )

Today the Nebraska Czechs of Wilber need the people of our community to volunteer and help keep our tourism and Wilber Czech Festival going. This is not the total answer to our economy in Wilber but until someone comes up with a better idea it will help just like it has over the past 23 years. A million dollars injected to our community every few years is just the shot that may save us all.

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