Many Czech families, known locally as Bohemians, settled in the late 19th century in southwest Smith, northeast Rooks, and northwest Osborne Counties. To strengthen the community economically and culturally, local leaders met on May 1, 1916, with a lodge member from nearby Zurich, Kansas, to organize Western View Lodge #246, with nineteen charter members. The first meetings were held in the Buffalo Ridge Schoolhouse in southwest Smith County, usually monthly except during wheat harvest in July or when winter weather prevented travel, and the women took turns providing refreshments as visitors from other lodges often came to the Sunday afternoon gatherings. In 1934, after the Plainville-Zurich Lodge in southern Rooks County closed and asked to join Western View Lodge, its 1890s building was offered as part of the request. Western View Lodge accepted, moved the building to land east of Buffalo Ridge School that Joseph Rehor gave them, and began adapting it for community use. In December 1934 the lodge agreed to obtain a license for dances and appointed a lunch committee, and in 1935 it added a cement slab, then built a kitchen, entry hall, and coatroom over it while purchasing a kitchen license, utensils, a large coffee pot, and a new gas lamp. A stage was added to the south end in 1936, the exterior was finished in 1937, the basement under the stage was completed in 1938, and a light plant bought in 1939 served until rural electricity arrived in 1952, when a new heating system was also installed; around 1960 a new floor was laid. The hall hosted popular Czech and polka bands for dances as well as wedding dances, township elections, and benefits for families, while Western View Lodge also donated money to hospitals and county health units and raised funds for the March of Dimes and a polio fund. As the rural population dwindled over the following decades, the old Bohemian Hall in Smith County fell out of use. The Bull City Community Foundation, officially organized on January 29, 2001, to strengthen Alton economically and culturally, was offered the hall that same year so it could be moved into Osborne County for use as a community center and restaurant. On March 23, 2001, the building was officially signed over to the foundation, whose members raised funds, moved it to Alton, placed it over a full basement, and renewed it with updates, restrooms, a kitchen addition, and other improvements. It became the Bohemian Cultural Center and remains an important part of daily life in Alton as a restaurant and a place for dinner theaters, meetings, and community events.