Centerville, Nebraska began as a congregation center for the community of pioneer farmers who settled in south-central Lancaster County. As early as 1869 there was a school, cemetery, trading post and church at or near the “Centerville Corner” as it is often called. Most of the residents of the Centerville area in the late 1860s were farmers of German descent.

Today Centerville is little more than a wide spot in the road at the junction of Spur 55 B and Highway 33, about halfway between Lincoln and Crete. Present-day Centerville is comprised of a nearby cemetery, one old house, a clay tile barn, an old filling station, a vacant fuel storage / distribution facility, and an abandoned school. The old school is supposed to be removed soon; and the on again – off again service station / convenience store was not in operation as of early March 2005, though the property has recently changed hands and renovations are expected.

Early Settlers 
The Prey family, the first permanent white settlers of Lancaster County, made their home just a little more than 2 miles east of present-day Centerville in 1856. The area around Centerville was a good location for early settlers because it had numerous springs for water, the soil was fertile, it was near the Salt Creek where there was an abundance of native timber, the limestone quarries near Roca were not far away, and it was within 3 miles of one of the most used trails in Nebraska, the Nebraska City - Ft. Kearny Cutoff. The Centerville area was well suited for hunting, trapping, growing crops and raising livestock. 

Henry Spellman, a German by birth, brought his family to Nebraska in approximately 1866. It was on Spellman’s farm just east of present-day Centerville where there was a trading post near the banks of a spring-fed creek. Mr. Spellman was the postmaster at Centerville, and according to the 1888 Biographical Album of Lancaster County he was a state legislator for one term, served as Lancaster County Commissioner, and he was a land agent for the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company for several years. Today Terry Krull occupies the old Spellman farmstead. 

Centerville’s exact present-day location at the junction of Highway 33 and SW 14th Street / Spur 55 B was set long before those roads were ever imagined. In the 1850s and 60’s government surveyors laid out the lines that divided up the land into one-mile square sections, ultimately dictating the location of property borders and roads. Centerville’s location was a result of the proximity of natural resources and commerce (trading post, land agent and postmaster at Spellman’s) relative to the junction of the arbitrary dividing lines of the land. Interestingly, Centerville’s location may have also been how it was named…

Name
The name of Centerville might be a result of its location in the exact geographical center of its 36 square-mile precinct, and subsequently the precinct may have been named as per the village in its center. A map created in February of 1884 for the 1885 Nebraska Atlas shows Centerville as the only town in the entire precinct at the time. The map shows the features of Centerville including a school, church and cemetery; and there is a shaded area over the Spellman farm where there was a trading post and the occasional “post office”.

A few references spell Centerville with the “e” and the “r” reversed, ‘Centreville’. In fact, on the front of the old schoolhouse, the name is clearly spelled ‘Centreville’. However, most maps and references to Centerville spell it with an “er”, not “re”. 

Schools
The first school in the Centerville area is difficult to pin down. One old story would indicate that there was a school about ¾ mile east of Centerville. In his “Remembrances of the Centerville Precinct” William Krull wrote that in a small log school in the northeast quarter of section 22 was where the precinct’s first election occurred in 1866. Krull’s description would indicate this school to be more than ½ mile east of Centerville. This description would correspond with what might have been the location of the Crozier farm, where Mr. Crozier was serving as postmaster. But other stories indicate that there was a school at the Spellman trading post about the same time, which was only ¼ mile east of the Centerville Corner. The Crosiers were Irish and the Spellman's were German, which might suggest there may have been 2 different, “segregated” schools near one another – but this is only speculation based loosely on what little information is available about the area at the time.

Longtime area resident Harlan Wittstruck (now deceased) said in a 1987 interview that his family signed a lease or easement allowing for a school to be constructed on their property in about 1867. He was told the construction of the District 22 building preceded the Methodist church built in 1869. Considering the dynamics of early settlement, evolving statehood, and lack of suitable facilities, it is possible, if not probable, that there were a variety of early schools in the area. It might also be assumed that the earliest facilities were built and organized entirely by the pioneers considering there wasn’t much government to speak of in the 1860s. As a result, there is little to no documentation that could help us verify the first schools.

Centerville School building
built in 1901
The District 22 school building is still standing on the Wittstruck farm on the northeast corner of Centerville. The building is probably the second or third school built on the site. It was constructed in 1901 according to the faded paint on the front of the building. When Martell established a school in District 22, the Centerville school became District 22C and the Martell School was District 22M. Central Rural High School District 147 was built between the communities of Sprague, Martell and Centerville in the 1920s, after which time the Centerville school served only the primary grades. The Centerville school closed in about 1856 and the building became the property of the Salt Valley Grange. The school building appears church-like to passersby because of its tall windows, large bell tower and high, steep roof. However it has never been a church. According to Terry Krull, who lives near the school and attended elementary school in the building, he has been asked about “that church at the Centerville corner” a countless number of times. Krull’s reply to those who ask about the building on the corner is “If that’s a church, I spent eight years there for nothing.”

The Wittstruck family’s long-term lease with the State of Nebraska for the school property expired long ago, and the ground is once again under the Wittstruck family’s control. However, the school building was to have been moved off the site many years ago by its owner, a Mr. Kubicek. The future of the old school building is unclear.

Centerville Church
Prior to the construction of the church, Sunday school was held as early as 1866 or 1867 at the homes of area residents such as Julius Wittstruck and Fred Krull. Later, services were said to have been held in a small school, on the south side of the road, east of the Centerville Corner, near the Spellman family’s home and trading post. 

Though we know there were homes, schools and even a trading post near Centerville, the first verifiable documentation of a building at the Centerville Corner was a German Methodist Church built in 1869 on the southeast corner of the road. A better, more commodious church was constructed in 1882 on the southwest side of the road. The new, tall church sat upon high ground and was considered a “Beacon on the Hill” by its membership according to Mrs. Ray (Marcella) Clawson in an article she wrote for The Crete News, dated April 2, 1970.

Centerville’s German Methodist Church was the first of six or seven German Methodist Congregations in the area, thus it was referred to as a “Mother Church”. The early German Methodist churches where part of a group of churches that shared ministers who would travel between congregations. These ministers were called “Circuit Riders”.

Centerville Church had its 50th anniversary in 1919. The anniversary services were held in German. The anniversary coincided with the end of World War I. There was no formal celebration because the congregation didn’t want it to appear to as if they were