With over 2.5million visitors, the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898 is the largest event in Omaha’s history. Happening around North Omaha’s Kountze Place neighborhood, there were several temporary yet grand buildings constructed to feature the region’s bounty and ability. This is a history of the Mines and Mining Building in North Omaha.

The Mines and Mining Building was one of the main structures at the Expo. Designed by S. S. Beman (1853-1914) of Chicago, the building was located on present-day Pinkney Street between North 16th and North 19th Streets. A river flows in front of the walkway and large stairway leading up to the large white building. Located on the grand lagoon in the center of the Expo, the building looked like a Grecian temple. It was a temporary structure built with a wooden frame covered by a mixture of horse hair and plaster, and stood almost 40-feet tall.

There were large Ionic columns in the front, and each corner tower of the four-sided building had a pergola held up by columns with a flag at the top. The main entryway was a portico facing the lagoon with a large, circular stairstep dome and five regal statues celebrating the earth’s mineral bounties in front. Each side of the building also had four Ionic columns with statues on top of them.

Because of the value of precious materials featured in the building, it was a more fortified structure than the others at the Expo, including heavy locks, an assigned watchman just for the single building, and grills over the ground floor windows.

Each state in the Trans-Mississippi region was featured in the building. Everything in the United States west of the Mississippi River was called the “Trans-Mississippi” in the 19th century. The states involved in this building as well as throughout the rest of the Expo included Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon. Territories of that era, including the old Indian Territory later called Oklahoma, Alaska, Hawaii, and others were included, too.

Click to enlarge. These images are from a 2019 presentation by Adam Fletcher Sasse to the Douglas County Historical Society.

Piles of coal, streaked mineral ores, and glittering nuggets of gold, silver, platinum, copper, zinc, cobalt and aluminum filled cases throughout the building. Bars and ovals of dull steel as well as sheets and blocks and pipes of iron lined display booths throughout the building. Display jars filled with oil, petroleum, kerosene and other petroleum products from the states, there were many different types of products from the mining industry that were featured.

Quarry products including granite, marble, limestone, sandstone and the like building materials. There were also ornamental stones, serpentine, alabaster and onyx: clays and clay products. This area included grinding and polishing materials, emery, grindstones and whetstones, as well as the chemical minerals like phosphate rock, nitrates, salt and Fuller’s earth.

For instance, the booth for Arkansas included a 14,000-pound piece of zinc from Marion County, measuring 6-feet-long by 7-feet-wide. 

There were rocks and fossils, mica, asbestos, graphite, along with the gems include beautiful topazes from Utah, turquoise from New Mexico and the rubies and sapphires of Montana, among others. Everything throughout the building was a product of the Trans-Mississippi states.

There was also a display of mining machines and processes. The building also had a miniature gold mine and the panning of low-grade placer dirt, as well as other high technology from the industry during that era.

Each state in the Trans-Mississippi region also had its own separate exhibit, too, showing off its own mining-related resources.

The Mining Building was used during the Greater America Exposition of 1899, and demolished by December of that year.

Today, there are several houses in the exact location where the Mines and Mining Building stood from May 1898 to December 1899. There is also a historic marker in the nearby Kountze Park celebrating the community’s role in this grand event.

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MY ARTICLES ABOUT THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI AND INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION
GENERAL: Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition | Greater America Exposition | Locating the Expo | Demolishing the Expo
BUILDINGS: Administration Arch | Machinery and Electricity Building | Manufactures Building | Girls and Boys Building | Old Plantation | Sod House | Mines and Mining Building
EVENTS: Congress of White and Colored Americans
RELATED: Lost Monument | Omaha Driving Park | Kountze Park | Kountze Place

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