Located south of Dodge Street, both of Omaha’s grand railroad stations get all the love today. People like to think the Union Station and the Burlington Station were the only things going for rail travel, but for a long time they were not. Omaha needed another station to serve railroads that weren’t as big as the Union Pacific and the Burlington. Without such an illustrious history or magnificent building, this small but important facility has been largely forgotten in the city’s history. Following is a history of the Webster Street Station once located in North Downtown Omaha.

A Necessary Passenger Station

In 1885 the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway aka the Omaha Road constructed a new railroad station to the city and the only one north of Dodge Street. The station was a two-story building with a ticket booth, waiting area and restrooms on the first floor, and offices on the second floor. On November 13, 1885 the Omaha World-Herald declared, “The St Paul folks have the finest depot in Omaha… The backs of the seats in the waiting room are perforated “C, StP, M & O Ry.”

According to Omaha railroad historian John Peterson, that early article speculated that other railroads might use the station and concludes, “Just across the street, on the west side of Fifteenth, is the site purchased by the Missouri Pacific people, and should they conclude to build a depot soon, that particular corner of Omaha will undoubtedly enjoy a boom, especially in real estate circles.”

Soon after, Missouri Pacific passengers from the Union Station trains moved to the Webster Street Station using the Belt Line Railway in 1886, and the station grew quickly. The Omaha Road also built “a commodious freight yard over one mile in length and five hundred feet wide, north of Webster Street.” Over its length, the site also had “a fifteen-stall round house, water tank, coal sheds and other conveniences for the proper handling of its large business.”

According to historian Peterson, several lines soon after moved their traffic to the station. His research shows that in 1887, the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad started using it, and two years later the the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad started offering tickets there in 1889. Starting in 1888, the Belt Line Railway offered service there too, offering stops at the Oak Chatham Depot, the Druid Hill Depot, the Lake Street Depot and at Hamilton Street, then points south to Seymour Park in far southwest Omaha. It used “suburban trains” with a baggage and smoking car that had “neat can seats” making multiple trips daily.

In December 1888 there were frescoes painted throughout the inside of the station.

From the time it was built the station was busy. Specializing in serving the northern parts of Omaha, for its first 25 years the station was often mentioned in the newspapers for its services associated with Fort Omaha, the fairgrounds, the circus grounds, and other places and events in North Omaha. Its use was also strongly affiliated with the related Belt Line Railway.

In 1892, the last horse-drawn street car line in Omaha ran from the station to South 24th and St. Mary’s Avenue. Starting in 1869, at one point there were 20 of these cars citywide, but this was the last of its kind.

A history shows that in 1894, it was estimated “Over one billion pounds of freight is handled yearly” at the Webster Street Station.

An official report from 1896 found that with with 500 average daily users, the station had an average of 15,000 people used it monthly. While the station only had 50 seats, the same report noted that more facilities were needed, with too few seats, too little passenger room on platforms by trains, and no train sheds to cover waiting passengers outdoors. There was a lunch counter and restrooms, but they were inadequate too. Despite all of this the Nebraska Railroad Commission didn’t think the station needed to change.

In 1899, it was announced that a $25,000 renovation of the station was happening, “including another floor above the present one, an express building, and a new waiting room… New platforms will be built and protected by train sheds.” The facilities were effectively doubled by the Omaha Road. It was during this renovation when the lunch counter at the station became a full-service restaurant with white tablecloth service. It was located in the northwest corner of the building. Around that same time and for more than 25 years after, there was a “large popcorn and peanut wagon” run by a successful couple who also sold fruit. It was located in the northeast corner of the building. There was also a newsstand at the station.

Omahans were sometimes swindled at the station, and there was reportedly a big sign outside of the station that warned “Beware of Confidence Men.” For instance, in 1893 more than 400 people showed up a special excursion train to Fort Calhoun after buying charity tickets to “benefit the orphans fund.” However, after waiting for hours they discovered there was no train for them, and they had been duped. There were routine pickpockets and shell games at and outside the station, and a few big crimes. Maybe the most daring happened in 1921 when a group of “bandits” descended on the platforms outside the station to holdup a group of train conductors. Apparently they made off with cash and watches before the railroad police showed up, and were never caught.

The Omaha World-Herald reported that its heyday was 1900 to 1910, when “the station was used by about 20 passenger trains daily.” A 1901 estimate said there were 75,000 pieces of luggage at the station that year, averaging about 200 handled by four full-time workers everyday.

Over the decades the station was the sight of many grand arrivals and notable departures. In October 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt arrived at the Webster Street Station for a whirlwind tour of Omaha. Writing in 1930 about soldiers from Nebraska leaving to join the Spanish-American War, the World-Herald wrote, “The train, decorated with flags, left the old Webster Street Station as one of the most beautiful sights that ever passed over the rails from Omaha.” This type of romantic memory was typical in the papers for decades before that; afterwards it became rare.

The station was also home to the normal and mundane purposes of daily life. For more than 25 years, seasonal hunters would use the train to travel to points north for their catches. A local recalled in 1928 that, “I’ve seen the day down here by the old Webster Street Station when trains both spring and fall would bring home hunters who had gathered so much game that it was a question of what became of it all.” Football teams, military units, deceased residents returning for burial, new babies and families coming for reunions, seasonal workers and new homeowners, and lots of others came and went, too. Circuses left the station for the circus grounds in Near North Omaha and later at North 30th and Wirt Streets, and military tanks left here during World War II.

State of the Art

From the start, the station was a place of marked innovation. When it opened, it was renown for having three railroads work from the same station, which was unheard of in Omaha before then. Four eventually joined in: Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad, the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad, the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and the Omaha Road.

In 1889, a telegram operator was added to the station. This service was a state-of-the-art feature for the benefit of travelers and others. The New York Times noted the station for its innovations in the treatment of passenger luggage in 1902. In a rip-roaring piece focused on the treatment of bags, the Times reported, “The clause which provides that baggage shall be trucked, not rolled, is a big feature. The difference in the wear and tear on a trunk when it is zig-zagged bumpety-bump thirty or forty yards over wood and stone when it is hauled the same distance on a wheeled truck can be readily understood.”

The station was at the edge of railroad growth, too. According to historian Peterson, when the Omaha Road shortened its route between Florence and Fort Calhoun in 1884 with the Florence Cut-Off there was speculation the Chicago and North Western might use it for its passenger trains to Chicago, bypassing Council Bluffs and the Union Pacific bridge. The Omaha Bee reported “…the run into Omaha by Northwestern trains by the way of the Blair bridge and the cut-off will be made as easily and as quickly as the Burlington comes in (to Omaha) by the way of Pacific Junction and the Plattsmouth bridge.” The mere idea was revolutionary, but never came to pass.

In 1900, the Sioux City and Pacific moved to a new Union Station, with the Missouri Pacific doing similar in the same year. The West Side Depot was also competing with the Webster Street Station.

After his sojourn through the West in 1903, President Roosevelt returned to Webster Street Station to leave the city and continue his westward tour. Before he left though, he was gladly accosted by a Rough Rider who’d ridden in San Juan under Roosevelt’s command. “How glad I am to see you,” the president said with the tired leaving his face. The pair talked about inane subjects and he continued on his journey, reportedly happier for the visit.

Disappeared History

Starting in the 1910s, the station was increasingly seen as obsolete. Its tiny waiting room, old appearance and rickety conditions put off a lot of customers.

The Northwestern announced plans to abandon the station in 1925 after it took over the Omaha Road—but it didn’t do it. In 1925, the Missouri Pacific ended its passenger service to the station. That year, the World-Herald reported that the station was abandoned, and it was apparently used for a few weeks to house 500 Pullman cars that housed participants in the national American Legion conference held in Omaha that year.

The Union Station started receiving commitments from railroads coming to it in 1929, and opened officially in 1931. Every train in Omaha committed to going through there except the Omaha Road.

However, in late 1929 Northwestern announced they were going to renovate the station after all. Acknowledging it was “an old landmark here,” the company president decided it wasn’t practical to build a new station in Omaha then, nor was it practical to just transfer it’s use to the Union Station because there wasn’t that much traffic. Rather than either of those steps, they planned to “thoroughly renovate and repair” the station. During an inspection that year, the general manager of the Omaha Road said, “We are not at all proud of the Webster Street Station but the best we can promise just now is to improve it.”

Sentiment was seemingly against the station from that point onward. In 1950, the newspaper ran a smear article against the station, and a 1952 article in the World-Herald said the station was “practically closed.” On June 3, 1950 the last scheduled train left the station. The final remaining passenger service ended in 1956.

In September 1965, a two-alarm fire ravaged the building, with transients suspected of causing the blaze that hurt one firefighter. The shell of the building was demolished soon after.

Today, the Burlington Station has been lovingly restored and repurposed as the home of KETV, .while the Durham Museum is the excellent caretaker of the Union Station nearby.

However, there is no sign that one of the most important rail stations ever in Omaha stood at North 15th and Webster Streets. The trackage is gone, all of the railroad buildings are gone, and much of the former rail yards in the area have been built over anew to serve different purposes than President Roosevelt could have ever imagined. The site of the Webster Street Station at North 15th and Mike Fahey Street is now the exact location of the Kiewit University. There is no public historical marker at the location and no indication that it was the site of one of Omaha’s most important transportation developments of the 20th century.

Video about Webster Street Station

Special thanks to John Peterson for his contributions to this article.

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