Ocean to Ocean on Horseback

CHAPTER XXIII.

DES MOINES TO OMAHA

CHAPTER XXIV.

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

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.

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,