One of North Omaha’s longest running schools was moved once, rebuilt three times and continues serving the neighborhood after more than 130 years. This is a history of Lothrop School.

Built for a Suburb

Starting in 1887, many of the wealthiest families in Omaha were moving to the Kountze Place neighborhood, a fashionable whites-only suburb accessible via streetcar on North 24th and North 16th Streets. Lothrop Grade School opened in 1888 at 2212 Lothrop Street. It was named in honor of George V. N. Lothrop (1817-1897), the U.S. ambassador to Russia who retired that same year. Lothrop had previously served in Congress and other political capacities, too, and was well-regarded across the country.

In 1892, two wood frame buildings were moved from the old Paul Street School site to the new Lothrop School site and the school was reopened there.

After cajoling the new suburb’s residents to pay a levy for a new building in 1891, the Omaha School Board tried to build a 10-room school building instead of the 12-room building residents had paid for. The neighborhood’s well-heeled residents took umbrage at the broken promise and threatened a lawsuit. That was solved before going to trial though, and prolific Omaha architect John Latenser was contracted to design the new 10-room brick building, which was finished in 1892 for $32,000.

Growing and Growing

For more than 75 years, the story of the Lothrop School was one of growing and growing.

Built at North 22nd and Lothrop Streets, the new Lothrop School was intended to serve as the school for the Kountze Place neighborhood. Kindergarten through eighth grades were taught in the school. However, the neighborhood grew fast, and within a decade the school district was facing criticism for overcrowding at the school. By 1900, the newspaper reported that one room at the building had 80 students, and people wanted better for their children.

For more than a century, almost all Omaha grade schools were neighborhood schools only. In 1902, the district declared that Lothrop School’s boundaries were east from North 28th to North 24th Streets, and south from Manderson and Locust Streets to Miami and Ohio Streets. The original building was constructed in 1892, with the first addition built in 1908. It doubled the size of the building and cost $45,000. With 1,000 students, Lothrop became the largest grade school in the Omaha school district.

By the 1910s, the school facility took up the the entire block where the building sat. In addition to the original building, with a manual training building was constructed on the northeast corner. There was also a large school garden on the west side of the building that took up a half-block.

Architect Latenser was hired by the district to build an addition to the building in 1931. Featuring six rooms, the new structure replaced several frame annexes that were used for decades. The addition cost $60,000 to build. Despite wanting an assembly hall, it wasn’t built then because of what the district called its “prohibitive cost.”

In 1935, the Omaha Guide newspaper celebrated a sewing class taught at the school by an African American teacher. Race-related issues were present at the school for decades. For instance, in 1947 a civil rights group in Omaha demanded the school district stopped letting white supremacist groups use Lothrop School, including the Kountze Park Improvement Association, which was blatantly racist. The district did not comply with their request and the group kept meeting there.

White Flight Sweeps Kountze Place

Since the 1880s, the Kountze Place neighborhood had been locked into racial segregation by race-restrictive covenants. When the US Army drew the color line around North Omaha in 1919, they left Kountze Place out of the Black district intentionally. This marking, which was a red line on a map, was reinforced in 1936 when the federal government’s Home Owners Loan Corporation, or HOLC, imposed redlining to formally segregate Black residents from white residents in Omaha.

However, after World War II the real estate industry in Omaha needed to sell more modern homes in west Omaha, and starting in the early 1950s, real estate agents, insurers and bankers colluded to change the neighborhood. Using scare tactics including panic selling and panic peddling, real estate agents in Omaha spread rumors among white residents about the imminent decline in property value the neighborhood when Black people moved in. At the same time, they would overpay for one house on a block and then sell it to African American buyers cheaply. Then the agents contacted white property owners and urged them to sell their property before its value decreased because of their new Black neighbors. These tactics, called blockbusting, worked with precision throughout the Kountze Place neighborhood.

As white families moved away Black families moved in and Lothrop School’s population of African American students grew more and more. It was well-known that by the late 1950s, Lothrop had joined the ranks of Omaha’s other Black schools, which kept Black students segregated from dozens of other schools throughout the city.

The school had begun integrating African American students en masse by the mid-1950s. There were isolated circumstances of Black students attending the nearly all-white school before then, but by 1953 the redline segregating the white enclave of Kountze Place from the Near North Side began to fall.

A New Building for an Old School

After being open for 70 years, the 1960s was a decade of massive change at Lothrop. A Black principal, a new building, many new students and increasing social pressures arrived in short order.

Eugene Skinner (1914-1993) was the first African American principal in Omaha Public Schools, and from 1963 to 1969, he led Lothrop School. During his tenure, there were more than 1,200 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. The numbers of students at Lothrop during his prinicipalship were astounding by 2024 standards. There were more than 300 kindergarten students. There were 75 Head Start students. Nine classrooms were kept in an old next door, and there were 100 first- and second-grade students in three portables.

In 1955 the Omaha school board bought the former Immanuel Baptist Church next door to the school to move into. Intended to house 160 students in nine classrooms, it eventually had many more. The next year they bought lots next to the church, effectively expanding the school’s land to just over five acres.

By the mid-1960s, the school was housed in used its 1892 building with two additions, the old church next door and three other frame buildings for classes. The school was located on 11 house lots then. In 1967, the district dedicated the new Lothrop School building with an eye on eliminating all the peripheral structures that housed it.

“In the shadows of three frame cottages, the sixth-oldest Omaha public school building and a partially renovated church, the Omaha Board of Education will dedicate a new Lothrop School next Sunday.”

— Omaha World-Herald, April 10, 1967

The new building was air-conditioned and cost $485,000 to build. A second phase to construction was planned at the same time and included 22 rooms that would cost $700,000 to build. However, there was not a timetable for its construction.

In 1967, a feature in the paper said Lothrop had 45 full-time teachers and 6 part-time teaching specialists. There were an average of 28 students per classroom. The pictures immediately above this paragraph are from that article.

In 1975, the school district expanded Lothrop again with a $1.3million addition. It is a single story adjoined to the 1965 building and had 18 classrooms, 2 kindgarten rooms, an administrative center and a library media center. A commons was built too, and the building featured an open school concept, as well as traditional classrooms for different grades. The Lothrop sign was removed from the 1891 building and built into the new structure’s entryway. Bright colors were used throughout the interior paint and carpeting. The original school building and the old church were both demolished that year, too.

In 1976, the United States Supreme Court declared Omaha Public Schools must become racially integrated, including Lothrop School. That year Black students from the school began getting bussed to other schools in the city, especially Laura Dodge Elementary School. The district’s integration program was ended in 1999.

Lothrop in Modern Times

Lothrop Elementary School has changed and modified and reformed throughout the decades. It was designated as a magnet school for decades, intending to draw learners from other communities in the city.

However, when Omaha Public Schools ended their desegregation efforts, Lothrop Elementary re-segregated, and according to 2023 data, the Lothrop population is still predominantly African American. According to the US Department of Education, in 2023 Lothrop School had 363 students, 191 of who are African Americand 102 are Latine/Hispanic. Students of other races include American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and Asians, as well as 21 white students. Students of color comprise 94% of the building’s student population. Enrolling 100% low-income students, the school is a Title 1 building with 27 full-time teachers and one full-time counselor.

As of 2024, Lothrop serves 400 students daily in pre-kindergarten through 5th grade. It is a Title 1 school, meaning that it provides extra support focused on reading, writing, mathematics because the students live in an area with high poverty levels.

The school has its historic 1891 nameplate inside the building. However, its history and legacy is rarely acknowledged by the public today and few know of its journey. Maybe someday…

You Might Like…

• A History of the Kountze Place Neighborhood in North Omaha
• A History of Immanuel Baptist Church
• A History of 24th Street in North Omaha

MY ARTICLES ABOUT THE HISTORY OF SCHOOLS IN NORTH OMAHA

GENERAL: Segregated Schools | Higher Education
PUBLIC GRADE SCHOOLS: Beechwood | Belvedere | Cass | Central Park | Dodge Street | Druid Hill | Florence | Fort Omaha School | Howard Kennedy | Kellom | Lake | Long | Miller Park | Minne Lusa | Monmouth Park | North Omaha (Izard) | Omaha View | Pershing | Ponca | Saratoga | Sherman | Walnut Hill | Webster
PUBLIC MIDDLE SCHOOLS: McMillan | Technical
PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS: North | Technical | Florence
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS: Creighton | Dominican | Holy Angels | Holy Family | Sacred Heart | St. Benedict | St. John | St. Therese
LUTHERAN SCHOOLS: Hope | St. Paul
HIGHER EDUCATION: Omaha University | Creighton University | Presbyterian Theological Seminary | Joslyn Hall | Jacobs Hall | Fort Omaha
EDUCATORS: Eugene Skinner | Lucinda Williams nee Lucy Gamble | Edmae Swain
COMMUNITY EDUCATORS: George McPherson | Florentine Pinkston | “Professor” PJ Waddle | Christine Althouse | Bertha Calloway | Beverly Blackburn
COMMUNITY EDUCATION ORGANIZERS: Edwin Overall | Lerlean N. Johnson | Nellie Mae Webb | Ernie Chambers | BANTU
MORE: Fort Street Special School for Incorrigible Boys | Nebraska School for the Deaf and Dumb

Listen to the North Omaha History Podcast on “The History of Schools in North Omaha” »

Elsewhere Online

• “Lothrop Elementary” official Omaha Public Schools webpage

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