Dubois Czech Hall

The hall grew out of a freethinking tradition. SAH Archipedia, drawing on its 1989 National Register form, traces the lodge to the C.S.P.S., the earliest Czech fraternal society on the Great Plains and a promoter of Czech freethought, from which the Z.C.B.J. broke away, founded in Nebraska in 1897. Lodge members built this hall themselves in 1920 and 1921, of brick and hollow clay tile behind a stucco front with a central lunette. Inside, a balcony looks over an auditorium that faces a raised stage under a wooden proscenium arch, beneath a pressed-metal ceiling.

What the plaque says

DuBois Czech Hall The Řád Jan Kollár čis. 101 ZČBJ Hall is a major Czech-American landmark in the Pawnee and Richardson County immigrant community. The lodge of the Western Bohemian Fraternal Asso- ciation (ZČBJ) was designed in the distinctive Czech-American Baroque Revival style by local builders Frank Daniel and Morris Hartung. The hall served multiple functions including meetings, dances, funerals, celebrations, and theatrical performances. It was dedicated in 1921. The Kollár Hall is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Western Fraternal Life Association, Kollár Lodge Nebraska State Historical Society. 2012

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brownville — 32 mi
  A Missouri River town of 1854 that bet on a railroad and lost, kept its arts through the decline, and now has Nebraska's oldest repertory theatre and a 1932 steam dredge on the bank.

More markers nearby

• Pawnee City — 6.0 mi
• Humboldt Commercial Historic District — 9.5 mi
• Village of Steinauer — 12 mi
• The Lane Trail — 17 mi