Likely starting on July 4, 1854, the mythical day Omaha City was founded, there have been crimes throughout its history. Some of them were devious, others were dubious and many were dumb. This is the story of the murder of Edward Flurry (1858-1906) in South Omaha, where the accused might have been lynched without trial.
On May 14, 1906, three men were arrested for the murder of Ed Flurry, Omaha streetcar conductor during an attempted robbery on March 8, 1906. Ed Flurry had worked for the streetcar company for a longtime and knew how to defend himself. However, during the scuffle Flury was shot. After a few days, on March 13, 1906, he died from his wounds.
The suspects were Harry Clark, Cal Warren and Clarence “Pink” Gathright (1886-1946), and they were all African American men. After they were originally brought to the South Omaha Police Station, a mob gathered outside demanding to lynch the suspects. They used racial slurs and epithets to make their demands.
When the mob leaders were invited to come inside the station and look for the men, they were not found because they’d been secretly moved to the Nebraska State Penitentiary. In reality, the suspects were moved to the Douglas County jail in downtown Omaha.
Regardless, the mob dispersed without further incident. One newspaper said the trio were “anxious to get to the pen” [state penitentiary] to be protected from the mob, and because of that they admitted to the crime. In article after article, both the Omaha World-Herald and the Omaha Bee used racist stereotypes and sensationalism to tell the story of what happened. For instance, in one piece after Clarke’s execution the Bee said, “Evidently colored people did not take sufficient interest in the affair to call up, for so far as could be detected, the voices over the phones were those of white persons.” This was typical of the media coverage.
Nobody was arrested related to the potential lynching.
A Douglas County jury found the three men guilty of murder in the first degree. Warren was sentenced to life in prison; and Gathright was sentenced to twenty years in the pen as an accomplice to murder.
In June 1906 he was denied a new trial, and on March 7, 1907, Harrison Clark was hanged for the murder of Edward Flurry. A sensational Omaha Bee article from the time of the execution said, “The murder for which Clarke paid the forfeit was one of the most spectacular holdups every perpetuated in the vicinity of Omaha… It created the intensest [sic] excitement.”
As far as crimes in Omaha’s history, this wasn’t the most spectacular. However, the unaccounted-for lynching attempt is pretty heinous, and no popular conversations in the history of Omaha have ever mentioned it. As another example of white supremacist terrorism in Omaha, that’s what needs to be talked about from this story. This event happened so close to the 1909 Greek Town riot in South Omaha, the 1910 Jack Johnson riot in Omaha, and other events with racist overtones that it can’t be denied its role in the large picture of mob violence and white supremacist terrorism in Omaha’s history any longer.
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MY ARTICLES ON THE HISTORY OF CRIME IN NORTH OMAHA
Crimes: 1891 George Smith Lynching | 1909 Unsolved Murder | 1910 Jack Johnson Riot | 1917 Larkin McCloud Case | 1919 James Smith Death | 1919 Will Brown Lynching | 1969 Vivian Strong Killing | 1960s North Omaha Riots |
Events: Bombings | Mob Violence
Criminals: Early 20th Century Crime Bosses | Vic Walker | Ollie William Jackson | Axe Murderer Jake Bird
Related: Black Police in Omaha | Police Brutality | Antisemitism | Racism
Elsewhere in Omaha: 1906 Murder of Ed Flurry | 1899 Kidnapping of Ed Cudahy | 1890 Pinney Farm Murders
BONUS
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