Daykin, Nebraska
History
The town of Daykin was built on 61 acres of land homesteaded by William E. Ide and sold to John N. Daykin, a native of England who had grown up in Ohio.
Daykin in turn sold the land to Fairbury residents John Kesterson and George Cross who platted the town on June 8, 1887. They immediately granted right-of-way to the Kansas City and Omaha Railroad line from Tobias to the junction of the St. Joseph and Denver City Railroad about 10 miles southeast of Daykin.
On the same day that the town was established, lumber arrived for the first building in the village, the Jefferson County Bank which is still in existence today and managed to survive through the crash of 1929 and the depression years of the 1930's.
Many of the settlers of Daykin were of German and Czech descent, who relocated to the area lured by the good soil and abundant water. In the early days, water was provided to the town through the use of windmills. In the 1930's, a large wooden tower with a 15-foot diameter wooden wheel built by the Kansas City and Omaha Railroad before Daykin was a town, A public well in the center of main street provided those residents who didn't have a well of their own with water. Residents would fill their buckets with water and carry the buckets into their homes to cook, clean and bathe. The drayman and visitors to town would water their horses at the tank.
Many residents not only had their own well, but had their own windmill with which to pump the water and the use of the windmills earned the village a feature on "Ripley's Believe It or Not". The town was noted as the "Town of the Windmills" because of their popularity.
At one time, the town was also know as the "Mint Capital of Nebraska," so named because of the enterprising farmers in their area who began growing mint as a cash crop.
Daykin's 1900 census showed 189 residents. The highest population was in 1910 with 220. The population has remained much the same throughout the first 100 years, with 210 residents in 1987, Daykin's centennial year.
