North 24th Street was once referred to as Omaha’s “Street of Dreams.” For almost a century, fine homes, massive churches, several higher education institutions, a successful hospital and more lined the street from Dodge Street into the Minne Lusa neighborhood. Important businesses were in this mix too, and car dealers were some of them. This article is a history of Dewey Chevrolet in North Omaha.
Meet Wilbur Dewey
Wilbur E. Dewey (1888-1966) was a small town boy with big dreams who came to Omaha to make his mark. Moving to the city from Herman, Nebraska, he started work for a motorcycle maker. After his young bride died suddenly Dewey raised his son alone before starting his own car sales company in North Omaha. Dewey Chevrolet served the community for more than 50 years.
Wilbur was 23-years-old when he married Bessie E. Wallace (1888-1919) in Denver in 1911. The couple lived in the Strehlow then. Born in Herman, Nebraska in 1886, in Omaha he was a motorcycle racer who worked for a company called Mickels’ Nebraska Cycle Company. Late in 1916, its founder Thomas Mickel (1865-1943) was humiliated in front of a company banquet by the Omaha police who arrested him for speeding in front of his event. Refocusing his business on sewing machines afterward, Mickel lost Dewey’s attention.
In 1917, Dewey organized the Excelsior Motor Company at 16th and Capitol. Excelsior was a motorcycle maker, and Dewey opened a dealership and repair shop at his new location. Just two years later though, Mrs. Dewey died at the age of 31 in 1919. That year, the family was living at 4417 North 21 Street. Widowed with a one-year-old son named Jack E. Dewey (1918-1992), Wilbur kept living in their modest house in the Saratoga neighborhood.
Getting Moving in Cars
Overcoming his grief and refocusing his business on cars instead of motorcycles, Dewey started Dewey Chevrolet in 1921. Impressed by the Chevrolet Motor Company’s treatment of its dealers, Wilbur located his new dealership near North 24th and Spaulding Streets at the edge of the then-middle-class Kountze Place neighborhood.
Surrounded by a grocery store, movie theater and drug store, the Dewey Chevrolet dealership was located on a popular business strip north of 24th and Lake and south of 24th and Ames. Herman K. Lefler (1889-1962) was his number 2 man for a few years. Champion drivers, Dewey and Lefler raced their Chevys in competitions across Nebraska and Iowa.
Dewey also sponsored Soap Box Derby racers in North Omaha for several years.
Wilbur was remarried to Virginia K. Kalteier (1897-1967) sometime before 1930. By that year, his mother-in-law Marie Kalteier (1872-1954) and Virginia’s grandmother Katherine Green (18??-1945) lived with the Wilbur, Virginia and young Jack. Growing his business successfully over the years, Dewey became a Mason, joined the North Omaha Shriner Club and Kiwanis, and other fraternal organizations and belonged to the Omaha Oldtimers Auto Club.
Wilbur’s son Jack graduated from Omaha North High School took a year of college at UNL. He was 22 years old when he registered for the World War II draft in 1942. Marking his employment at Dewey Chevrolet since 1933 (when he was 15 years old), Jack’s draft card might have signaled his military future: during the war, he was a “technical representative” for Allison Motor, a division of General Motors that took care of fighter planes in the war. He was stationed in Asia and Canada during the war.
Jack married Elizabeth A. (1921-2003) in 1942.
Mayor Cunningham appointed Dewey to the City of Omaha Sanitation Commission in 1953. Serving with fellow Saratoga businessman Bill Schollman, he helped make important decisions about new dumps, sewage engineering, and other issues. Late in 1953, he was named the chaiorman of the commission.
Working into his late 60s, Wilbur retired from the business in the late 1950s. While he remained president on paper, Jack was the secretary-treasurer of the company. Earlier in 1940, Dewey promoted L.L. Smith to general manager in 1940, and when he retired Smith was running daily operations at the dealership. Wilbur’s son Jack worked for the business after WII.
A New Location
In 1956, Dewey Chevrolet moved locations from North 24th and Spaulding Streets to 4200 North 30th Street. Building a new showroom and garage, the new facility dedicated a corner to used cars and the showroom to new cars. In 1960, Smith became president of the Dewey Chevy dealership. In the mid-1960s, the company doubled the size of its body repair and paint shop, and began building a new 12,000 square foot building, and in 1965, the company was renamed Dewey-Smith Chevrolet. L.L. Smith bought an ownership stake in the business and was named president.
Operating since 1921, Wilbur E. Dewey started the longest running Chevrolet dealership in Nebraska when he died in 1966 at the age of 79. The company was 58 years old then. He was survived by his second wife wife Virginia at 3317 Belvedere Boulevard. Dewey was buried in Forest Lawn. Virginia died the next year and was buried in her family plot in Forest Lawn.
It was 1967 when Jack’s step-mother Virginia died. That same year, Jack succeeded L.L. Smith as the president of the company at his retirement. With the company 45 years, Smith stayed on the company board. That year, the company advertised that its facilities on North 30th Street occupied four and a half acres. The gladly advertised that “Our present management’s philosophy is unchanged from the day of its beginning.”
The head of the Omaha Zone Chevrolet Dealers Association, the younger Dewey had also served as a past president of the Omaha New Car Dealers Association.
Into the Future then Going Away
Dewey told the Omaha World-Herald that “he ‘just about has to move’ because there are not enough businesses left around his North 30th Street location to draw customers. He added that he is also ‘running out of room.’” — Omaha World-Herald, Sunday, July 2, 1972
In 1971, Jack Dewey announced to the City of Omaha Planning Commission that he was going to move the dealership to a 15-acre lot in west Omaha the next year. That move happened in 1973. The next year, after spending eight years as a car salesman on the floor, Jack’s son William D. Dewey took over as the new car sales manager for his father. However, the youngest Dewey moved away from Omaha and left the automotive sales industry. Renaming the business Dewey Chevrolet, the business kept their North 30th Street location until 1976, but closed it permanently that year.
Jack Dewey sold his interest in the dealership in 1976. That year, the dealership was sold to businessmen from Kansas, and Huber Chevrolet opened in its place. That closed the Dewey family’s legacy of car sales in Omaha permanently.
Jack Dewey died in 1992.
Remembering Dewey Chevy
Today, Dewey Chevrolet has been closed for almost 50 years and many people have forgotten about the business. However, parts of both of the North Omaha locations still stand. History shows us that businesses like this that helped ensure the working class and middle class ambitions of many residents could be fulfilled, and when the business was gone the community lost.
Hopefully in the future, these kinds of businesses will invest in the community and flourish there again. History is always a teacher, and the story of Dewey Chevrolet can teach us all a thing or two still. What have you learned?
Share you thoughts, memories or more information in the comments!
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MY ARTICLES ABOUT THE HISTORY OF N. 24TH ST.
NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES: 24th and Lake Historic District | Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church | Carnation Ballroom | Jewell Building | Minne Lusa Historic District | The Omaha Star
NEIGHBORHOODS: Near North Side | Long School | Kellom Heights | Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects | Kountze Place | Saratoga | Miller Park | Minne Lusa
BUSINESSES: 1324 North 24th Street | 24th Street Dairy Queen | 2936 North 24th Street | Jewell Building and Dreamland Ballroom | 3006 Building | Forbes Bakery, Ak-Sar-Ben Bakery, and Royal Bakery | Blue Lion Center | Omaha Star | Hash House | Live Wire Cafe | Metoyer’s BBQ | Fair Deal Cafe | Carter’s Cafe | Carnation Ballroom | Alhambra Theater | Ritz Theater | Suburban Theater | Skeet’s BBQ | Safeway | Bali-Hi Lounge | 9 Center Five-and-Dime | Jensen Building
CHURCHES: Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church | Pearl Memorial United Methodist Church | Immanuel Baptist Church | Mt Moriah Baptist Church | Bethel AME Church | North 24th Street Worship Center
HOUSES: McCreary Mansion | Gruenig Mansion | Redick Mansion
INTERSECTIONS: 24th and Lake | 24th and Pratt | 24th and Ames | 24th and Fort | Recent History of 24th and Lake | Tour of 24th and Lake
EVENTS: 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition | 1899 Greater America Exposition | 1913 Easter Sunday Tornado | 1919 Lynching and Riot | 1960s Riots
HOSPITALS: Mercy Hospital | Swedish Covenant | Salvation Army
OTHER: Omaha Driving Park | JFK Rec Center | Omaha University | Creighton University | Bryant Center | Jacobs Hall | Joslyn Hall | Harlem Renaissance
RELATED: A Street of Dreams | Redlining | Black History in Omaha | North Omaha’s Jewish Community | Binney Street | Wirt Street
BONUS
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