OMAHA.
Arrival in Omaha.--The Missouri River.--Position and Appearance
of the City.--Public Buildings.--History.--Land Speculation.--
Panic of 1857.--Discovery of Gold in Colorado.--"Pike's Peak
or Bust."--Sudden Revival of Business.--First Railroad.--Union
Pacific Railroad.--Population.--Commercial and Manufacturing
Interests.--Bridge over the Missouri.--Union Pacific Depot.--
Prospects for the Future.
On the afternoon of October twenty-first, 1876, I sat in the saddle upon
the eastern bank of the Missouri River, opposite Omaha, Nebraska, having
that day accomplished a horseback journey of twenty-two miles, on my way
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Paul Revere, the faithful horse who
had borne me all the way from Boston, declined entering the ferry boat,
it being his firm conviction that rivers should either be crossed by
bridges or forded. At last, being gently coerced, the horse reluctantly
consented, and the muddy current of the river was soon crossed. At three
o'clock I entered the city of Omaha, the half-way house across the
continent, it having been a little more than five months since I dashed
out of the surf, my horse's hoofs wet and dripping with the brine of the
Atlantic.
Omaha lies on the eastern boundary of Nebraska, opposite Council Bluffs,
on the western bank of the Missouri River, a turbulent stream, which is
never satisfied with its position, but is constantly shifting and
changing, and making for itself new channels. A bottom land about three
miles wide stretches out between Omaha and Council Bluffs, and through
this the Missouri rolls, a swift, muddy stream, slowly but surely
carrying the Rocky Mountains down to the Mississippi, which, in its
turn, deposits them in the Gulf of Mexico, and helps to extend our Gulf
coast. The Missouri vibrates like a pendulum, from one side of this
bottom land to the other; now being near one city, and then near the
other. At the period of my visit its current washed the front of Omaha,
leaving Council Bluffs some distance off on the opposite side; but it
was already beginning its backward swing. Thus the boundary line between
Nebraska and Iowa is being continually shifted, and one State is
augmented in territory at the expense of the other.
Omaha is built in part upon the low bottom lands which border the river,
and which may at any time be menaced by the swollen and angry stream,
unless precautions are taken, in the building of high and substantial
stone levees along the river front. The town lies also in part upon the
table lands beyond, and is extending to the bluffs which rise still
further away. Its business is chiefly confined to the lower portion,
where magnificent blocks attest the prosperity of the city. Streets of
substantial dwellings, and numerous most elegant private residences,
with large and handsomely ornamented grounds, are discovered as one
passes through the city. A striking edifice, of Cincinnati freestone,
four stories high, is occupied as a Post Office and Court House. Its
High School building is one of the finest in the country. When the State
Government was, in 1866, removed from Omaha to Lincoln, the Legislature
donated the Square and Capitol Building at the former place for High
School purposes. The old Capitol was demolished, and a magnificent
school building erected on its site, at a cost of $250,000, while other
fine school edifices, aggregating in cost about $150,000 more, were
erected in other sections of the city. The High School building is on
the summit of a hill, overlooking a large extent of country, and has a
spire one hundred and eighty-five feet high. The Depot of the Union
Pacific Railroad is also a noteworthy edifice.
Omaha was first laid out in 1853, and thus named, after a now nearly
extinct tribe of Indians. The first house was built, and the first ferry
established in that year; and a year later the first brick-kiln was
burned, and the first newspaper--the Omaha Arrow--established. Where
Turner Hall now stands, in 1854 was dug the first grave, for an old
squaw of the Omaha tribe who had been left by her kindred to die.
Whittier's description of the growth of western cities seems
particularly applicable to Omaha:--
"Behind the squaw's light birch canoe
The steamer smokes and raves,
And city lots are staked for sale
Above old Indian graves."
The first Legislature of Nebraska convened in Omaha in the winter of
1854-5; and in 1856 the Capital was definitely located in that city, and
the erection of the capitol building commenced. For a year or two there
was a great land-boom, and city property and "corner lots" were held at
fabulous prices. But in 1857 a crash came, and for a time the infant
town was prostrated. However, in 1859 the discovery of gold in Colorado
gave it a fresh impetus. The miners who marched in a perpetual caravan
across the plains, in white-topped wagons, marked "Pike's Peak or bust,"
made Omaha their final starting-point, taking in at that place supplies
for their long journey. Two years previous all who could get away from
the apparently doomed town had gone to other sections, to begin anew the
fight for fortune. Only those remained who were too poor to go, but
these were now in luck. Fortune came to them, instead of their being
compelled to undertake an ignis fatuus chase after her. At that time the
business men of the city laid the foundations of their wealth and
prosperity.
In 1857 the town was incorporated as a city; but up to 1867 its only
means of communication with the east was by stage-coach, across Iowa,
and by steamers on the Missouri, which latter ceased running in winter.
In 1865 the population of the town was but four thousand five hundred
persons. In 1867 the first train of cars arrived in the city, on the
Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. It was not long before other
railroads, one after another, made it their western terminus, and its
prosperity was established. Then came the Union Pacific Railroad, which
started on its long journey across the plains and mountains from this
point. The trade to the Pacific coast thus necessarily passed through
Omaha, which became a gateway on the route, while many travelers and
emigrants paused to breathe and rest before proceeding further, and to
take in large quantities of supplies. In 1875 its population had
increased to twenty thousand inhabitants, and in 1880 had run up to
thirty thousand.
Strange as it may seem, the building of the Union Pacific Railroad has
diminished rather than increased the local trade of the city. In
overland times single houses sometimes traded as much as three million
dollars' worth in a year; but the railroad has so dispersed and
distributed business, that now none reach even half that amount. The
city, however, does an immense manufacturing business. Within its limits
is located the largest smelting works in America, employing nearly two
hundred men, and doing an annual business of probably not less than five
millions of dollars. One distillery alone, in 1875, the year previous to
my visit, paid the government a tax of $316,000; while there are
extensive breweries, linseed-oil works, steam-engine works, and
pork-packing establishments. The engine shops, car-works and foundry of
the Union Pacific Road occupy, with the round-house, about thirty acres
of land, on the bottom adjoining the table land upon which the city is
built. Over one million dollars is paid out annually in these
establishments, for manual labor alone, without including payments for
merchandise and supplies. A notable industry is the manufacture of
brick, over five millions being turned out annually from the four
brick-yards of Omaha. The city is also the headquarters of the Army of
the Platte, which annually distributes nearly a million of dollars.
The first postmaster of Omaha used his hat for a post office, and
carried around the mail matter in that receptacle wherever he went,
delivering it by chance to its owners. Twenty years later the city
possessed the finest government building west of the Mississippi, while
the post office receipts are to-day upwards of a million dollars
annually. Hides, buffalo robes, and furs, to the value of one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, are annually collected and shipped from
Omaha; while two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is the extent in a
single year of the sewing machine business. The Pacific Railroad ships
from Omaha vast quantities of grain to the Salt Lake Valley, and brings
back in return supplies of Utah fruit, fresh and dried. The first
shipment of fruit, made in 1871, amounted to three hundred pounds. In
four years the quantity had increased to nine hundred thousand pounds,
and is still greater to-day. The Grand Central Hotel was the finest
hotel between Chicago and San Francisco, having been erected in 1873, at
a cost of three hundred thousand dollars; but it was destroyed by fire
in 1878.
The visitor to Omaha will probably reach that city by means of the great
bridge across the Missouri River. This bridge is two thousand seven
hundred and fifty feet long, with eleven spans, each span two hundred
and fifty feet in width, and elevated fifty feet above high water mark.
One stone masonry abutment, and eleven piers, each with two cast iron
columns, support this bridge. Its construction was commenced in
February, 1869, and completed in 1872, during most of which time not
less than five hundred men were employed upon it. Each column was sunk
in the bed of the river until a solid foundation was reached. One column
penetrated the earth eighty-two feet below low water, before it rested
on the bed-rock. The approach to the bridge from the Council Bluffs side
is by means of a gradually ascending embankment, one mile and a half in
length. This bridge was constructed at a cost of two million six hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, and brings an annual revenue of about four
hundred thousand dollars. It is now, by act of Congress, considered a
part of the Union Pacific Railroad, making the eastern terminus of that
road really at Council Bluffs. Its total length, including its necessary
approaches by embankment on the eastern shore, and by lengthy
tressel-work on the western shore is nine thousand nine hundred and
fifty feet, or nearly two miles.
The old depot grounds of the Union Pacific Railroad were on the bank of
the river, directly under the present bridge. In order to complete the
connection between the bridge and the road, a branch line, seven
thousand feet in length, was laid down directly through the city, and a
new, spacious and most commodious depot constructed, on higher ground.
And from this depot the westward-bound traveler takes his departure for
that western empire toward the setting sun, and may, perhaps, continue
his journey until he has reached and passed the Golden Gate, and only
the solemn immensity of the ocean lies before him.
Situated midway of the American continent, on a navigable river, which
drains the northwest, and opens communication with the east and south; a
prominent point on the great road which clasps a continent and unites
the Atlantic with the Pacific; and at the same time a terminus for
lesser roads which open up to it the trade and commerce of the interior;
and on the borders of two states rich in agricultural and mineral
wealth, and settled by a thrifty, intelligent and enterprising people;
Omaha can scarcely fail to become the greatest city west of St. Louis.
Founded but a generation ago, its business is already stupendous, though
it is really but a beginning of what it promises to be in the future. As
Iowa, Nebraska, and the States and Territories still further to the
northwest, become more thickly settled, with their resources developed,
it will form their natural commercial centre, to which they will look
for supplies, and where they will find a market or a port for their
produce and manufactures. With such an outlook, who will dare to limit
Omaha's possibilities in the future, or say that any flight of the
imagination really exceeds what the actuality may prove?