Although he never lived in North Omaha, his name is all over one neighborhood. With many roles in old Omaha it should be no surprise that this insane man was honored with permanent namesakes. Part of the issue, though, is that this Omaha pioneer was a racist bigot whose white supremacist attitudes afflicted his newspaper, his politics, and the city for more than a century after he died. This is a biography of Dr. George Miller.

North Omaha’s eponymous Miller Park, as well as the neighborhood and school, was named after George Lorin Miller (1830–1920). Dr. Miller was the founder of the Omaha World-Herald. He was also a pioneer physician, editor, politician, and land owner. A constant promoter of the city he helped establish, he was involved in pushing the Union Pacific Railroad through Omaha in the 1860s, and in making the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition happen.

The oldest son of Omaha’s second mayor, George Miller went to a medical school in New York City and practice there before moving to Omaha in 1854. After that, the young Dr. Miller became the first doctor in Omaha City. Elected to the Nebraska Territory Legislature in 1856, he served four terms including one as the president of the Legislature. One of his unfortunate deeds there was that during all of his service, Dr. Miller led protests any legislation seeking to prohibit slavery in the territory. He repeatedly claimed slavery did not exist in the territory, even when faced with evidence to the contrary. He also asserted that if it did the government did not have the right to take away private property in the form of enslaved people.

After moving away from 1860 to 1864, he decided to leave the medical profession and joined the U.S. Army to fight for the Union during the Civil War.

In 1864, he came back to Omaha and ran for Congress but lost. After founding the Omaha Daily Herald in 1865, Miller was in a constant battle with another local paper called the Omaha Evening World until 1889, when he sold his paper to his competitor. The paper became known as the Omaha World-Herald.

In the 1880s, he bought a large tract of land in North Omaha made of cornfields and dugout houses in an area called “Gophertown.” By 1891, he flattened those homes, laying out streets, planting trees, and selling lots in an area that became called the Miller Park neighborhood. It was named for the Miller Park, which Dr. Miller sold to the city for use as a public park. It was during this era that he served as the first president of the City of Omaha Board of Park Commissioners.

In 1900, he was locked up for being insane. However, he was eventually released and reassumed his political and business activities.

Long lauded for being a perpetually enthusiastic Omaha promoter, there were several parks nominated to be named after Dr. Miller as soon as 1890. The Miller Park was named for him in 1893. The neighborhood to the south was named Miller Park School was named for him in 1912, and the neighborhood surrounding it took on the name afterwards.

Miller died in Omaha in 1920 and is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Dr. Miller’s Racism

Looking closely at Dr. Miller’s editorial record at the Omaha Daily Herald from the 1860s reveals a man who was a chief architect of systematic racism in the Nebraska Territory. Miller’s affliction with white supremacy was not a passive byproduct of his time; it was his aggressive political tool used to define the new city as a “white man’s city” and to delay Nebraska’s statehood in a desperate attempt to prevent the right to vote going to Black people.

The centerpiece of Miller’s white supremacist vision was the “Negro Colony” scare. In early 1866, as the United States Congress debated granting suffrage to Black men in the territories, Miller used his newspaper to frame Black voting rights as a threat to white people and America. In an editorial from January 11, 1866, he characterized the bill as a “bold and infamous attempt” to convert Nebraska into a “Negro Colony”. By using the term “colony,” Miller tapped into the anxieties of white immigrants by suggesting that the very land they wanted would be surrendered to a “degraded” and “impecunious” population. His rhetoric was effective because it influenced the drafting of Nebraska’s 1866 state constitution to explicitly include the word “white” in its suffrage clause. This calculated commitment to white supremacy backfired initially when the U.S. Congress rejected Nebraska’s statehood application specifically because of this racial restriction, delaying the state’s entry into the Union for a full year.

Beyond high-level politics, Miller’s racism permeated the daily social fabric of Omaha through the “Police Court” sections of the Herald. These columns dehumanized the city’s Black population by treating social disputes as entertainment for white readers. In reports on areas like Casey’s Row, Miller’s writers used animalistic descriptors, referring to “kinky curls” and “fistic exercises” to turn community incidents into caricatures. This journalism served the very specific purpose of reinforcing the idea that Omaha’s Black residents were inherently disorderly, justifying their segregation, especially in areas near the levee or railroad tracks.

Miller’s platform helped other racist figures too, most notably George Francis Train. When Train campaigned with his “Woman First, Negro Last” platform, the Herald reprinted his most offensive slurs with a level of amusement that signaled Editor Miller’s approval. Miller ensured that Omaha would develop not as an integrated frontier town, but as a city divided by invisible racial lines. Using media, Miller constructed racial hierarchies that established a precedent of white supremacy and racist fear that still haunts Omaha today.

Namesakes

• Miller Park Neighborhood, North 30th and Fort Street
• Miller Park, North 30th and Kansas Street
• Miller Park School, North 28th and Ellison Avenue
• George Miller Parkway, 180th Street

You Might Like…

• History of the Miller Park Neighborhood
• History of Miller Park
• History of the Intersection of 24th and Fort
• History of the Miller Park Duplex Historical District

Elsewhere Online

• Dr. George L. Miller, Findagrave.com
• George L. Miller, Wikipedia
• Miller, George L., History Nebraska
• “First Omaha doctor served Nebraska territory and state” by John Schleicher for UNMC in 2017.

Bonus Pics!