Heun Nebraska - Nebraska Directory

Heun Area Cameras

Rural Czech parish community · Colfax County · post office 1885–1903

About Heun

Heun is a rural Czech Catholic community in Midland Township, in the middle of Colfax County, about 12 miles north of Schuyler and a mile east of NE 15. Its brick Holy Trinity Catholic Church of 1928 and the parish cemetery, in use since 1871, still serve the area; the mailing address is Clarkson.

History

Czech settlers knew the area as the Bohemian Settlement on Maple Creek. The first Mass was said in 1871 in Peter Lodl's sod house, and in 1878 John Folda and William Heun, a German-born settler, each gave five acres for a frame church beside the cemetery. The parish first used the Praha post office (Czech for Prague), which opened as Reno in 1879 and ran on the Sobota farm about 2 miles south-southeast until 1902. William Heun opened a post office next to the church in 1885, and the community took his name; it closed in 1903.

Father Anthony Folta built the rectory in 1920 and the present brick church in 1928. Holy Trinity served mission churches at Tabor and Wilson, and parishioners still play taroky, a Czech card game, by their own local rules. About 4 miles south, Czech Catholics built the Assumption church at Dry Creek in 1881; the church is gone, but its cemetery of 1876 remains. The Heun school district lasted from 1874 to 1967.

Nearby towns

Tabor	about 5 mi east-northeast	County roads
Howells	about 7 mi north-northeast	NE 15 and NE 91
Wilson	about 7 mi west-southwest	County roads
Clarkson	about 8 mi north-northwest	NE 15 and NE 91
Leigh	about 11 mi west-northwest	County roads
Schuyler	about 12 mi south	NE 15

Things to see

Holy Trinity Church and cemetery, 1733 Road 12 · Dry Creek Cemetery, about 4 mi south · Sousek Cemetery and Schroeder Cemetery, small family cemeteries to the southwest · Danish Lutheran Cemetery, about 2.4 mi southeast · Zion Presbyterian Church (1887–88; National Register), about 4 mi north-northwest