A HALT AT OMAHA.
Omaha, the capital of Douglas County, the chief commercial city and
metropolis of Nebraska, is the half-way station across the Continent. It
is aptly called the "Gate City," seeming, as it does, a sort of opening
to the great railroads, the great waterways, and the whole fascinating
great beyond of western enterprise and western commerce.
As I rode into the city it seemed that it would be hard to find a more
attractive place.
"A fine plateau nearly a mile broad, and elevated fifty or sixty feet
above the Missouri, is occupied by the chief business portion of the
city," while the beautiful bluffs, the low, rounded, tree-covered hills,
forming a semi-circle on the west and south, are thickly dotted with
tasteful and elegant residences and buildings surrounded by carefully
laid-out grounds.
The streets cross at right angles. Most of them are one hundred feet
broad; but Capitol avenue is one hundred and twenty feet in width.
On high grounds, just southwest of the city limits, is Hanscom Park, a
fine, natural grove, beautified by art for the delight of pleasure
seekers.
Conspicuous on the west is the extensive Poor House Farm, containing the
fine brick poor house.
To the north, on a high wooded hill, solitary, apart from the city, yet
always within sight of its bustle and rush, lies, in its solemnity,
Prospect Cemetery.
In the northern section of the city, also, we find the Douglas County
Fair Grounds, the Omaha Driving Park, and Fort Omaha.
A bridge, the erection of which cost $1,500,000, spans the Missouri and
connects Omaha with Council Bluffs.
I found Omaha not only fair to look upon, but also interesting in many
ways. It is the key to the Rocky Mountains and the gold mines of
California. Its wholesale trade amounts to about $15,000,000 annually
and is constantly increasing. Its industries include smelting, brewing,
distilling, brick making, machine and engine building and meat packing.
The trade in the latter branch being only excelled by that of Chicago
and Kansas City.
Its manufactures are constantly increasing. The Union Pacific Machine
Shops alone employ about seven hundred men. Omaha has a linseed oil mill
which turns out yearly millions of oil cakes and thousands of gallons of
oil. One of the city's distilleries is so extensive that it pays the
United States Government a tax of $300,000 per year.
The educational advantages of this metropolis are unsurpassed by any
city of its size in the West. It has eleven fine ward school buildings
and one high school. The latter occupies the former site of the old
territorial capitol. It is a fine, large building, erected in 1872, at
a cost of $250,000. Its spire is three hundred and ninety feet above the
Missouri River, and its cupola commands a view embracing many miles of
river scenery.
Creighton College is a Jesuit institution, endowed by Mrs. Edward
Creighton to the amount of about $155,000. It will accommodate four
hundred and eighty pupils and opens its hospitable doors to all
students, irrespective of creed or race.
A four-story stone Post Office stands on the corner of Dodge and
Fifteenth streets. That building, together with the furniture which it
contains, is alleged to have cost $450,000; and Omaha people claim that
it is one of the handsomest government buildings in all the land.
By the way, self-respect, humble pride, an appreciation, a love and
admiration of every good thing the "Gate City" contains, is a
characteristic of all honest, true-hearted Omaha men--God bless them!
They are even proud of their jail, which is universally conceded to be
the handsomest and strongest penal institution in the West.
Omaha is headquarters for a military division known as the Department of
the Platte. A great part of the financial supremacy of the city is due
to the heavy purchase and distribution of military supplies. The General
Government, some time since, acquired eighty-two and a half acres of
land, two miles north of Omaha, christened it Fort Omaha, and spent over
$1,000,000 in erecting military buildings upon it.
Statistics change rapidly in this Gate to progress and improvement. In
the year 1877, improvements were added to the city amounting to about
$800,000; in 1878, amounting to $1,000,000, and in 1879, to about
$1,222,000.
Such was the Omaha which I rode into. How thought-compelling a place it
was! How typical of the push, vigor, enterprise and pluck which have
proved so masterful in the development of our once "Wild West." It is
with pleasure that the mind runs over its history.
The first knowledge we have of the region in which Omaha is situated,
comes to us, like many another crumb of information, from Father
Marquette. He visited that tract in 1673, explored it and mapped out the
principal streams. At that time the region was claimed by Spain, and
formed a part of the great Province of Louisiana. It finally became a
French possession, and was sold by that nation to the United States in
the year 1800, for $1,500,000.
On the twenty-seventh of July, 1804, Messrs. Lewis and Clark came up the
Missouri, and camped on the Omaha plateau, where the waters of the river
then covered what is now the foot of Farnam street, and that part of the
city where the Union Pacific Machine Shops are now located, also the
smelting works, warehouses, distillery, extensive coal and lumber yards,
and where numerous railroad tracks form a suggestive network.
In 1825, T. B. Roye established an Indian trading station on the present
site of the city.
In 1845, a band of Mormons, driven from Illinois, settled slightly north
of the Omaha of to-day. They came as "strangers and pilgrims," and
called their little settlement by the suggestive title of "Winter
Quarters." The Indians, however, insisted that the Mormons should not
remain. So pressed, the saints divided their little party. A few
families, under the leadership of Elder Kane, crossed the Missouri and
started a settlement destined to become Council Bluffs.
The balance of the inhabitants of "Winter Quarters" placed themselves
under the leadership of Brigham Young, and with one hundred and eight
wagons migrated to Utah, where they immediately staked out Salt Lake
City, and began to build their Temple.
By so slight a circumstance Omaha missed being next door neighbor to, or
even becoming herself, the New Jerusalem of the Saints.
William D. Brown is conceded to have been the first white settler who
staked out a claim on the plateau now occupied by Omaha. He started for
the California gold fields. On his way it occurred to him how profitable
it would be to establish a ferry across the Missouri to accommodate the
thousands passing westward. Putting in practice his idea, in 1852, he
equipped a flatboat for that purpose. He named this venture of his "Lone
Tree Ferry," from one solitary tree on the landing, just east of where
in Omaha to-day stand the Union Pacific Shops.
In the spring of 1853, Mr. Brown staked out a claim embracing most of
the original town site of Omaha.
July 23, 1853, Brown became a member of the Council Bluffs and Nebraska
Ferry Company, whose object was to open a steam ferry, and to establish
a town on the west bank of the river. Despite protests from Indians and
without consent of the United States, in the winter and early spring of
1854, what is now Douglas County was nearly covered by staked-out claims
of "sooners" and speculators.
May 23, 1854, Nebraska was admitted into the Union as a Territory, and
in the same year Douglas County was created. Immediately, upon a
beautiful plateau, a town site was selected, laid out, and christened
Omaha.
The first house in Omaha was commenced before Omaha itself legally
existed. It was built by Thomas Allen. It was a log house, was named the
St. Nicholas, was used as a hotel, a store, or anything else which the
public demanded.
In July of the same year another house was built--this one being of pine
flooring. It was on the present site of Creighton College. Here, a few
weeks after its erection, the first native Omaha boy first saw the
light, and from this same house, a few days later, an Omaha citizen
first passed out to that mysterious country
"From whence no traveller returns."
The third house was called "Big 6." Its owner opened "A general
assortment of merchandise suitable for time and place," and "Big 6" soon
became a place of note.
House No. 4 was opened by a house warming, which was attended even by
settlers from the adjacent State of Illinois.
In the same year, that of 1854, the so-called Old State House was built
by the Ferry Company to accommodate the first territorial legislature.
It was not an architectural beauty, and consequently, in 1857, it gave
place to a large, brick Capitol.
[Illustration: SPORT ON THE PLAINS.]
In this, to Omaha, memorable year of 1854, the first doctor, the
first lawyer and the first minister settled in her boundaries, also the
first steam mill began running.
January 15, 1855, the large frame Douglas House was opened by a grand
ball. It did an immense business for many years, and became notedly the
headquarters for politicians and speculators.
The first territorial legislature convened January 16, 1855, and
remained in session until March seventeenth of the same year. Where that
legislature should meet became a question of vital importance to a
number of Nebraska towns. The matter was hotly contested but the
metropolis won the prize, acting Governor Cummings designating Omaha as
the favored spot.
Traffic by steamboat did much to develop the "Gate City." Sometimes
boats arrived seven or eight times a week, bringing new inhabitants,
timber, machinery, provisions, furniture, and piling their cargo--human
or inanimate--out upon the since washed away levees, to be taken care of
as best the embryo city could.
The first boat of the season was the event of the year. Down the
inhabitants ran to meet it, without regard to age, sex or race; down
they trooped, laughing, shouting, rejoicing that communication with the
great world was once more open. Many a "cotillon" was danced on the deck
of that first boat, while the unloading was being vigorously carried on
below.
There was little crime in the new city. In the three formative years
only one murder is known to have been committed, and no criminal was
legally executed until 1863.
There was never much Indian trouble in this vicinity. However, Omaha
several times raised troops to protect the whites of Douglas County. In
1864, a large band of Indians appeared on the Elkhorn and so frightened
the settlers that they poured into Omaha before daylight. Business was
suspended, a meeting called in the Court House at two o'clock P. M., and
before sunset every able-bodied man was armed. This promptness and
efficiency so impressed the Indians that no outbreak took place.
In the late Civil War, Omaha responded nobly to the call of the General
Government. The First Regiment of Nebraska Volunteers, the First
Battalion, the Second Regiment Nebraska Volunteers, the First Nebraska
Veteran Cavalry, and four companies of Curtis' Horse, came almost
entirely from Omaha.
The first telegraph line reached Omaha in 1860.
The first breaking of ground for the Union Pacific Rail Road took place
in Omaha, December 3, 1863.
The first train from the East reached Omaha by the Chicago and
Northwestern route, January 17, 1867.
So Omaha grew and prospered. It took about twenty-seven years to bring
it out of original wildness to the state of excellency in which I found
it as I passed through on my horseback journey. Yet it seems but
yesterday since no human dwelling occupied the place now covered by our
young city. Here the Indian council-fires burned; on the bluffs, with no
more civilized weapon than his bow and arrow, he hunted deer, buffalo,
elk, bear and wolf. Here his war-whoop rang out clear and unmolested.
Here brave, free, unfearing, he dwelt,
"Monarch of all he surveyed."
[Illustration: PAWNEE INDIANS, NEBRASKA.]
And now he is completely effaced from this region. Gone and only
remembered by some quaint name still attached to stream or mountain.
To-day "the moving millions, both in this country and Europe, are making
earnest inquiry for Nebraska." 50,000 new inhabitants came to it in
1880. The close of the late war brought many ex-soldiers and their
families here to claim land privileges near Omaha, and from "the four
quarters of the globe the swelling thousands have come to settle with
those that made their way thither. From Maine and Texas, and from every
territory of the Rocky Mountains, they came." "The rank and file, the
bone and muscle, were men who came to stay, who counted the cost, who
measured the sacrifice." Under their faithful hands the desert has been
made to "blossom like the rose." "The dug-out and the log house have
given place to the elegant mansion, and thousands of groves have sprung
up almost as if by magic all over the prairies."
These brave pioneers knew it would be so. They believed in the embryo
city. By faith they saw the fields blossoming for the harvest. They
heard the song of harvest home, they saw the smoke of the rising city,
the highways of commerce, and some of them saw the highways of nations,
so long a fable to the American people, stretching up through their
valleys to the everlasting mountains and on to the broad Pacific. To-day
the day-dream of these brave men is realized--
For lo! it has all come true.