Menominee Nebraska

Former post office · Cedar County · 1867–1902

About Menominee

Menominee is an unincorporated community about 1.5 miles east of US 81 in northwestern Cedar County, between Fordyce and South Yankton. Today it is the St. Boniface Catholic Church complex and a few homes, with Chalkrock Wildlife Management Area alongside.

History

German and Bohemian settlers arrived after the Homestead Act, from 1865. The Menominee post office opened on May 6, 1867, and closed on May 27, 1902, when mail moved to Fordyce. In 1890 the settlement had J. H. Hoesing's general store and William Kleinschmidt's blacksmith shop.

Father F. Lechleitner of St. Helena organized St. Boniface congregation in 1869, and it became a parish in 1882. The present Gothic Revival church was built in 1886 of chalk rock cut by hand from a nearby bluff; it was gutted by fire in October 1900 and rebuilt by 1902. The church complex, with a 1911 rectory and a 1923 chalk-rock school, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, and the nearby Franz Zavadil Farmstead, a Bohemian immigrant farm from 1876, in 1985. St. Boniface is now part of All Saints Parish with Fordyce and Constance.

Things to see

St. Boniface Church (National Register) · St. Boniface Cemetery · Chalkrock WMA, 130 acres with a 44-acre lake (fishing, boating, hunting) · Franz Zavadil Farmstead (private; view from the road)