Omaha was established by wealthy people who started it to build their wealth. Most of the city’s real estate was owned by these moguls who started subdivisions and neighborhoods in addition to their regular occupations. One of the most successful was a doctor, entrepreneur and real estate mogul who built a fine estate at North 40th and Cuming Streets. This is a history of the Dr. Samuel D. Mercer Mansion in North Omaha.
A Biography of Dr. Mercer
Born in in 1841, Dr. Samuel D. Mercer (1841-1907) was the son of a successful farmer near the village of Walnut Hill, Illinois. Mercer earned his way on the family farm and eventually attended four colleges, including McKendree College, the University of Michigan, Chicago Medical College and the Berkshire Medical College, Massachusetts. He served in the Civil War as an assistant surgeon in the Illinois Volunteers 149th Regiment, and then continued his career.
Around 1866, Dr. Mercer became the chief surgeon of the new Union Pacific Railroad based in Omaha and traveled the country doing his job. In the next several years, he was also surgeon for the Omaha Smelting Works, surgeon for the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad, owner and operator of the Mercer Chemical Company and a founder of the Omaha Street Railway Company. One of his businesses, the Mercer Hotel in downtown Omaha, boasted 100 rooms at $2 nightly along with 50 rooms at $2.50 nightly that included a bath IN the room. This business was very lucrative during the Trans-Mississippi Expo.
Dr. Mercer was married in 1870 to Lizzie Hulst (1840-1906), and together they had six children, an infant daughter, George (1871–1904), Nelson (1874–1963), Emma (1877–1877), Caroline (Carrie) (1878–1911) and Robert.
When he retired from the railroad in 1886, Dr. Mercer founded Omaha’s first hospital, as well as founding the Omaha Medical College in 1881 and serving as its professor of clinical surgery from 1882 to 1884.
Dr. Mercer served as the secretary of the Nebraska State Medical Society from 1868 to 1875, was vice-president of the American Medical Association from 1885 to 1886, and was the president of the United States Army Pension Examiners Board of Directors, too.
Dr. Mercer ran for Nebraska governor in 1890 and lost. In 1893, he ran as a “citizen candidate” for mayor. The Omaha Bee wasn’t having it though, and ran a headline that announced “Mercer Files His Petition, Another Act in a Political Comedy in Which the Doctor is the Star.” Dr. Mercer was running against a successful Republican candidate and his candidacy just wasn’t taken seriously. He lost.
When he died in 1907, the Omaha Bee placed his wealth at $500,000, which is over $10 million today. His family went on owning the mansion. He was buried at Forest Lawn.
Mercer got into real estate by developing North Omaha’s Walnut Hill neighborhood in 1885.
Building an Estate
In the 1880s, present-day North 40th Street was called Lowe Avenue and it was in the country. Surrounded by farms filled with cows, Dr. Mercer platted a subdivision there. The jewel of the new development was Dr. Mercer’s home, which he called the Parkview Estate.
Its centerpiece was his own house, a grand 23-room red brick mansion built in the Queen Anne style. Costing more than $60,000 to build in 1885, it’s design features a large four-story tower on the corner of the mansion that announced to everyone how important the home was to the city. The placement of the mansion on one of the tallest hills in western Omaha told everyone how important Mercer was to the original city it looked over.
When it was finished, the mansion had gas lamps lit by a plant on the property, its own underground ice house, and many fineries on the inside. Along with stunning Eastlake style woodwork throughout, there were parquet floors, and a “huge skylight panel of stained glass, its design representing dawn and dusk.” There was stained glass throughout the house with “handsome fireplaces, the pierced metal gas chandeliers, the beautifully wrought hardware…”
Sidney Smith (1839-1915), an English architect who designed a lot of homes and buildings in Omaha, was responsible for the Mercer Mansion. According to Omaha designer Quentin Lueninghoener, Smith was an architect in New Zealand, Englad and Ireland before immigrating to Milwaukee, then Omaha. When he designed Mercer’s fine home in 1885, at $35,000 it was reported to be the most expensive residence ever constructed in the city. Between 1881 and 1907, Smith’s designs led to the construction of more than 50 buildings and homes throughout Omaha, with many located north of Dodge Street.
A 1942 description of the mansion called it “swank,” and said that originally, “On the first floor were library, den, dining room, breakfast room, music room, drawing room, kitchen, servants hall and large entrance hall. There were nine bedrooms on the second floor, billiard room and five more sleeping rooms on the third floor. There were many fireplaces.” By this point, it sat on 3.5 acres.
Inside his home, Mercer built a modern house fit for a king. Cherry, mahogany, oak and black walnut woodwork fills every nook and cranny. Fine moldings, built-in cabinetry and stunning banisters on the staircases make the home spectacular in every way. Originally, there were butler’s rooms and plenty of space for guests.
A majority stakeholder in Omaha’s main streetcar company, Mercer wanted his neighborhood to be Omaha’s first-ever “streetcar suburb.” Running the streetcar almost directly from downtown to his development was the second amenity of Walnut Hill. His own architect, Sidney Smith, designed many of the homes built in the neighborhood.
Over the next two decades, Dr. Mercer entertained extensively at the estate and raised his successful family there.
The neighborhood near the mansion is also home to the Mercer Park, which is a pretty little slice of land that the family donated to the City of Omaha in memory of Carrie Mercer, Samuel’s daughter, after she died in a trans-Atlantic ship sinking. Eventually, the estate was encircled by Mercer Boulevard and Mercer Park Road, too. Eleven acres were given to the City in 1910 on the condition they extend Lincoln Boulevard into the park to connect it through the Reservoir’s parkland, with the goal of tying it to the John Creighton Boulevard several blocks away. Eventually part of the property was developed, and today the park is either 1.8 acres (listed here by the City of Omaha) or 4.15 acres (listed here by the City of Omaha).
In the 1920s, the Victorian trim was removed and the house was subdivided into apartments. and called the Mercer Apartments. That first year a report on apartment rents in Omaha in the newspaper said they ranged from $75 to $250 monthly and ranged from two-room to eight-room suites, with a three-year lease for each unit required.
In 1926, $40,000 was invested in finishing apartments on the building, including a new wing, modernizing the exterior and “much of the gingerbread sliced off.” Seven apartments were built, each with a fireplace… Dr. Nelson Mercer, son of the builder, and Mrs. Mercer, who recently returned from London, England to live in Omaha, have one of the apartments. Dr. Mercer has taken over management of the building and other Mercer properties. He can remember when, as a boy, he used to get lost in the woods surrounding the house.”
In 1971, Safeway Stores submitted a plan to the City of Omaha to demolish the mansion. Seeking to building a grocery store on the corner, they submitted a sururban style development plan that was ultimately withdrawn. After that, when the City discussed building a senior retirement tower across the street, Mark Mercer offered to give the home to the Nebraska State Historical Society. Neither step happened though, and after that Mercer’s family went on to shepherd the preservation and growth of the Old Market.
Two solid oak chairs weighing about 70 pounds each were stolen in a daylight theft from the mansion’s front hallway in 1970. A reward was offered for them. Two years later, in 1972, two stained glass doors were stolen off the mansion. A reward was offered for the doors too, but I haven’t found out whether the doors or the chairs were ever recovered.
In 1973, Mark Mercer spoke openly about being willing to sell the mansion, this time to be land for. the aforementioned Omaha Housing Authority tower to be constructed. That didn’t happen.
The newspaper reported in 1974 that “The storied Mercer Mansion… is about to get a new lease on life. It is being remodeled and will be returned to service as an apartment house.” After the historical society turned down the opportunity to buy it, Mark Mercer said “Our hope now is to fix it up and try to break even on it.” However, it was still referred to as a “financial liability” by the newspaper when in 1976 the Mercer Mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Mercer family continues owning the property today.
Today
Today the Mercer Mansion is still owned by Mercer’s descendents, who are essential to the entire city’s history.
Today, this spectacular home is a large, rambling beauty that sits on an entire city block. Its ornate brick exterior is unusual and features a lot of peaks and indentations that will make your eyeballs pop when you’re trying to take in the whole house. They are very protective of its privacy though, and except for rare special tours, visits are mostly limited to street side views only.
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MY ARTICLES ON THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN NORTH OMAHA
GENERAL: Architectural Gems | The Oldest House | The Oldest Places
PLACES: Mansions and Estates | Apartments | Churches | Public Housing | Houses | Commercial Buildings | Hotels | Victorian Houses
PEOPLE: ‘Cap’ Clarence Wigington | Everett S. Dodds | Jacob Maag | George F. Shepard | John F. Bloom
HISTORIC HOUSES: Mergen House | Hoyer House | North Omaha’s Sod House | James C. Mitchell House | Charles Storz House | George F. Shepard House | 2902 N. 25th St. | 6327 Florence Blvd. | 1618 Emmet St. | John E. Reagan House
PUBLIC HOUSING: Logan Fontenelle | Spencer Street | Hilltop | Pleasantview | Myott Park aka Wintergreen
NORMAL HOUSES: 3155 Meredith Ave. | 5815 Florence Blvd. | 2936 N. 24th St. | 6711 N. 31st Ave. | 3210 N. 21st St. | 4517 Browne St. | 5833 Florence Blvd. | 1922 Wirt St. | 3467 N. 42nd St. | 5504 Kansas Ave. | Lost Blue Windows House | House of Tomorrow | 2003 Pinkney Street
HISTORIC APARTMENTS: Historic Apartments | Ernie Chambers Court, aka Strehlow Terrace | The Sherman Apartments | Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects | Spencer Street Projects | Hilltop Projects | Pleasantview Projects | Memmen Apartments | The Sherman | The Climmie | University Apartments | Campion House
MANSIONS & ESTATES: Hillcrest Mansion | Burkenroad House aka Broadview Hotel aka Trimble Castle | McCreary Mansion | Parker Estate | J. J. Brown Mansion | Poppleton Estate | Rome Miller Mansion | Redick Mansion | Thomas Mansion | John E. Reagan House | Brandeis Country Home | Bailey Residence | Lantry – Thompson Mansion | McLain Mansion | Stroud Mansion | Anna Wilson’s Mansion | Zabriskie Mansion | The Governor’s Estate | Count Creighton House | John P. Bay House | Mercer Mansion | Hunt Mansion
COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS: 4426 Florence Blvd. | 2410 Lake St. | 26th and Lake Streetcar Shop | 1324 N. 24th St. | 2936 N. 24th St. | 5901 N. 30th St. | 4402 Florence Blvd. | 4225 Florence Blvd. | 3702 N. 16th St. | House of Hope | Drive-In Restaurants
RELATED: Redlining | Neighborhoods | Streets | Streetcars | Churches | Schools
MY ARTICLES RELATED TO THE HISTORY OF 40TH AND HAMILTON STREETS
NEIGHBORHOODS: Orchard Hill | Walnut Hill | Bemis Park | Clifton Hill
PLACES: Walnut Hill Reservoir | Military Road | Walnut Hill Methodist Church | Belt Line Railway | Mercer Mansion | Military Theater
OTHER: Cuming Street | Saddle Creek Road | Military Avenue
Elsewhere Online
- Samuel D. Mercer House, City of Omaha Landmark Heritage Preservation Committee
- “UNMC history: Physician also was early entrepreneur” by John Schleicher for UNMC (2014)
Bonus
NorthOmahaHistory.com 
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