There are schools that stick in peoples’ memory wonderfully, and some that fall away with time. The area of Omaha east of Florence Boulevard extending to the Missouri River had several schools for a longtime, even though today there is only one. This is a history of the old Beechwood School that once stood in east Omaha.

Before 1920, the east Omaha area was filled with smalls farms, old roadhouses and a rural way of life unknown throughout the rest of Omaha. The city was emerging as an economic force on the river and was trying to become important to the entire nation. However, the small community growing in east Omaha didn’t have such high aspirations. Instead, these were rural farmers with a simple way of life and succeeding.

In 1880, these farmers banded together to form a new school district to serve their kids. School District 49 encompassed everywhere from Minne Lusa Creek (aka “Stink Creek”) to the town of East Omaha, and until 1887 extended south to the city limits of City of Omaha at Ames Avenue. J.C. Hazard, Charles Younger and Otto Barche were the first board members for the district, and A.D. Eby was the first teacher of the school. The original one-room schoolhouse was located at 1202 Browne Street in east Omaha. While today that location is at the edge of Levi Carter Park, in 1880 it was out in the middle of a farm field.

The building was 24 feet by 75 feet with approximately 1800 square feet inside. Apparently, there were two rooms that were able to hold 50 students total who were in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Who Were the Students?

From the time the school opened in 1880 until it closed in 1947, the students at Beechwood School were always country kids.

The kids in the area surrounding Beechwood School originally came from small truck farms scattered around since the 1870s. Before 1910, the school butted against investment land own by the Creighton family in Omaha, including Edward (1820-1874) and his wife Mary (1834-1876) and his brother John (1831-1907). The Creightons leased that land to small farmers who packed their produce in wagons called trucks to take direct to stores and to the farmer’s market in downtown Omaha. In the early part of the 1900s, Rass Andersen ran a business called the Carter Lake View Dairy on the edge of land owned by Levi Carter (1830-1903), a wealthy industrialist, which lined the newly formed Carter Lake.

In the 1890s, Bungalow City was an informal development of small homes perched on the northeast corner of Carter Lake, and many of the children in those homes went to Beechwood. By the 1910s, developers were coming for the land around Beechwood School. Omaha’s first Black-owned real estate subdivision included the area and was called Edgewood Park. When the business behind it failed, the land sat for a decade before 1927. That year, the Byron Reed Company began selling lots in two developments surrounding the school called Lakewood Gardens and Carter Lake View. Marketed as farming lots for low-income buyers, these were affordable country-like settings of one lot, three lots, a half-acre or an acre where owners were encouraged to build simple houses.

Levi Carter Park massively affected the school throughout its existence. It was 1908 when Selena Carter Cornish (1850-1938) donated her deceased husband’s investment land around the lake to the City of Omaha with the stipulation it be used only as a public park. In the 1910s, the City installed the Omaha Municipal Beach on the north side of Carter Lake, within a half-mile of Beechwood School. In 1925, they set aside 200 acres of the park for the Omaha Municipal Airport, which from that point forward drastically changed the nature of the surrounding area including all of the Beechwood School students’ homes. In 1932, the City continued developing the park.

In 1941, a group of three boys was sent to juvenile court after being caught vandalizing the school. In addition to wrecking the furnace, they trashed the classrooms and destroyed notebooks. However, the school district directors asked for leniency given the boys’ superior intelligence, confirmed by a psychologist’s IQ testing. A physician spoke on behalf of the leader, a 10-year-old who was president of the school bicycle club. The judge said, “I don’t think I’d sleep well tonight if I sent these boys away,” and released them to their parents.

The school vacillated in population, sometimes higher and sometimes lower. The tiny building had 167 students in the 1946-1947 school year.

That year, in 1947 the school district couldn’t afford to stay open after classes ended. In May 1947, speaking about the conditions at the school, Omaha superintendent Harry Burke said, “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in Nebraska.”

In June 1947, residents in the district voted to seek consolidation with the Omaha school district. After some legal questions and maneuvers, the Omaha school district agreed to the merger. When it was done Omaha immediately closed Beechwood and reassigned the students to Sherman. However, they didn’t account for transportation for the mile-and-a-half between the two buildings, and on the first day of the Beechwood students at Sherman more than 50 were absent. The school district made an arrangement for city buses to transport the students the next day, and everyone showed up then.

An interesting consequence noted by the Omaha school district was that they would lose approximately $5,000 in tuition charged to Beechwood students who wanted to go to high school, which was only in Omaha.

In June 1948, the school district tried selling the building. However, in July the district moved it to the Sherman School to serve as an annex that the district estimated would cost $1,250 to move. In December 1948, the Omaha school district sold a large portion of the old Beechwood School grounds for $200.

In July 1953, the building was moved again from Sherman to Saratoga Elementary School near North 24th and Meredith Avenue. Today there is no sign it was ever there and its history is mostly forgotten.

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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” »

MY ARTICLES ABOUT THE HISTORY OF EAST OMAHA
SEE ALSO: East Omaha History Tour
AREAS: Town of East Omaha | Carter Lake | Winspear Triangle | North Omaha Bottoms | Sherman | Sulphur Springs | Edgewood Park | Bungalow City | Squatter’s Row | Lakewood Gardens | East Omaha Factory District
BUSINESSES: East Omaha Truck Farms | Spanggaard Dairy | Carter White Lead Company | Nite Hawkes Cafe | Railroads
CARTER LAKE, IOWA: Courtland Beach | Omaha Rod and Gun Club | Carter Lake Club | Sand Point Beach and Lakeview Amusement Park | Omaha Auto Speedway | Lakeside Raceway |
CARTER LAKE PARK: Municipal Beach | Bungalow City | Pleasure Pier and Kiddieland | CCC Camp
PEOPLE: Selina Carter Cornish | Levi Carter | Granny Weatherford
TRANSPORTATION: Ames Avenue Bridge | Eppley Airfield | 16th and Locust Streets | JJ Pershing Drive | North 16th Street | Paine Airfield | Locust Street Viaduct
SCHOOLS: Beechwood School | Pershing School | Sherman School | St. Therese Catholic School
OTHER: The Burning Lady | St. Therese Catholic Church | 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition

Listen to our podcast “A History of East Omaha” online now!