WILBER, NE — A southeast Nebraska town is hitting a milestone this year.

For 150 years, Wilber has been strongly connected with its Czech heritage. Also a staple of the town’s story are some of the businesses that occupy the main street through town.

"I've known Fox Hole all my life," owner Steve Ourecky said. "We'd come here, my parents would come here after church to have coffee with the other families from around here."

Steve Ourecky’s family has lived in the area since the 1860s — before Wilber was established in 1873. He couldn’t imagine the town without the Fox Hole Tavern.

"I had my first beer in a bar here," he said. "It's a big part of our history and it's important to me and a lot of people in the community."

He now owns the restaurant, buying it in 2015 to keep it alive along HWY 41 downtown.

"It hadn't been very well taken care of for a number of years," Ourecky said. "It was really in danger of falling in on itself. That's why I bought it."

After Ourecky bought the business, he and others spent several months remodeling it. That includes a new floor and drop ceiling. The boots were replaced, although the new ones were made to look authentic to the originals. They also finished the basement and converted it into a bar space. The Fox Hole Tavern eventually reopened its doors in 2017.

That’s not the first renovation the building’s gone through. Back in 1945, two veterans returning from World War II — Bill Janda and Charles McManus — remodeled the building and opened the restaurant. At the time, they were renting the space for $75.00 a month. The two hired Dejml & Son to build the mahogany bar and back bar. A painting of a fox — painted by the brother of one of the ex-G.I.s — still sits above the bar to this day nearly 80 years later. Once opened, returning veterans got their first drink free. 

Through the decades it’s become a local landmark.

"In small towns, the bar is the community center," Ourecky said. "People come here in the morning to have coffee, they come here noon to have lunch and they come here in the evening to have a drink after work. That's just where you meet and socialize."

The name is a reference to the hole soldiers dig to shield themselves from fire. Ironically though, Janda and McManus didn’t come up with the name, a teller from the Wilber State Bank named Sidney Broz did.

Now Ourecky hopes the restaurant stays dug in to its spot in Wilber.

"Wilber's always had a steady growth," Ourecky said. "It's never had a boom and a bust like a lot of the towns. You may notice our downtown doesn't have any empty storefronts. You go to other small towns this size and half the town is boarded up. Wilber's been a good solid community all the way through."