North Omaha is old enough that there are some housing developments that have been wiped off the map. This article highlights the past of an area in North Omaha that simply stopped existing. It is a history of the Prairie Park neighborhood.

The Beginning of a Neighborhood

A lot of people don’t really think about the spaces we live in, recreate with, or drive through everyday. We don’t think about what was there before and what it meant to others before us. We also don’t think about the innovations or destructions wrought by the larger forces that affect others as well as ourselves. Instead, we just sleep, eat, play, work, commute, and otherwise live our lives.

These are images of homes in the Prairie Park neighborhood from a 1910 newspaper article, along with AI interpretations of those pics. I don’t know the exact locations, which were between N. 25th and N. 27th from Ames to Fowler. Do you recognize it?

At 24th and Ames, there was once a thriving commercial district packed with businesses for every need. Just six blocks away at 30th and Ames, there was a separate commercial district that did nearly the same thing. Both had grocery stores and bakeries, movie theaters and clothing stores. Pharmacies, jewelry stores, laundromats, fruit stands, bars and restaurants, and many other staples anchored these business centers. Surrounding them sat several idyllic originally suburban neighborhoods, including Collier Place, Saratoga, Bedford Place, Monmouth Park, and Prairie Park.

In early 1908, a group of businessmen led by B.J. Scannell and William Paxton, Jr. (1866-1910) and a few others bought the old YMCA Athletic Park, which was located across four blocks that were north of Ames between 25th Avenue and 27th Street. After sitting idle for a season it had served as a circus ground in 1907 when George Hoagland sold it to the group. Originally called the Prairie Trust, the real estate business was eventually called the Prairie Park Company. William Paxton Jr. became involved after his father died and inevitably left him some of his fortune. B.J. Scannell was Paxton Sr.’s private secretary, and likely received an inheritance that allowed him to buy in, too.

Before it was built, the Prairie Park Company placed a number of building restrictions on the subdivision. They included no outhouses of any kind on properties, including garages; no alleys; no wooden or board fences of any kind; and a 23′ setback from the sidewalk. There were also no chickens allowed on the properties. Immediately, people started taking care of vacant lots, planted flowers constantly, and kept the neighborhood well-maintained. To ensure the neighborhood’s success, Scannell bought lots around the Prairie Park subdivision, too, to ensure their care.

Seeking to build new houses “of a uniform high grade,” real estate speculators were “restrained from preventing the development of the district.” Their subdivision was named the Prairie Park Addition, which the newspaper said was to honor of Paxton’s young adopted daughter, Prairie (1905-1930). The earliest houses were built in 1909, with four structures at 27th and Fowler costing $2,500 per house. A few years later a “new six-room house with a reception hall surrounded by new homes” was sold in the addition near North 25th and Meredith for $4,000.

Scannell was a man of his neighborhood. Personally paying for the construction of many houses in the area, he lived there too. A 1959 newspaper article about his long life said, “He lived on Fowler Street when the surrounding area was nothing but cornfields. Scannell developed the district around his home getting streets paved and helping build and sell the homes himself.” He and his first wife Belle (1875-1947), as well as his second wife Zelora (1892-1971), lived at North 27th and Fowler.

In 1910, Scannell built a recreation facility in the neighborhood called the Prairie Park Club, and the building stood for decades afterwards. Located across the street from the neighborhood at 2605 Ames Avenue, the club included several tennis courts and a large building that originally sat on several acres.

Systemic Racism

Within a year of its launch, neighbors in Prairie Park formed an advocacy group. Insisting on white supremacy and racial segregation in their neighborhood, as was the custom in Omaha, Black people were actively kept from moving into the houses there.

Scannell was also a racist, shown when his company took home sellers to court in 1909 after two homes in the neighborhood were sold to James J. and Celia Jewell. An African American businessman, Jewell was the force behind the Dreamland Ballroom near 24th and Lake. Scannell’s Prairie Park Company took the sellers to court under the guise of a conspiracy to sell property without the right accounting. However, its clear Scannell was sending a signal to the sellers not to sell land to Black buyers, and to the Jewells not to move into the neighborhood. The court petition said, “other residents do not desire negro people as their neighbors.” The question of race was raised directly by the judge in the case, who stated there was “no color line” affecting the sale of the home. Within a few weeks, the case was settled out of court when the Prairie Park Company paid Jewell for the houses he bought.

The next month, a group of African American activists called the Mutual Interest Club protested the racist color line and called for a boycott of the Prairie Park Company. According to the newspaper, “All the lot owners” in the addition eventually signed a “iron-clad, steel-rivited, copper-lined” racial covenant to prevent sales to African Americans. The newspaper cited the names of 12 people in the neighborhood as signatories to the racial covenant , including seven men and five women.

The activists wrote, “This thing is the barbaric offspring of the most horrible institution, African slavery. It is the deliberate opinion of this club that this agreement is in plain contravention of true republicanism as represented by the constitution and the bill of rights of the state of Nebraska.” The racial covenants stood for several decades longer.

The End of a Neighborhood

The neighborhood continued into the 1970s, when it was almost wholly demolished to make room for the North Freeway interchange with Sorenson Parkway and the Storz Expressway. There are a few houses still standing today are included as part the original Prairie Park Addition, and they include…

Today, there is nothing in the community to recognize this former neighborhood. Its early acknowledgment of the longstanding racism and housing discrimination isn’t generally recognized either; instead, people fixate on a federal institution more than 25 years later. Omaha’s housing discrimination extends much further back.

Maybe in the future we will recognize Omaha’s complete racist history, its erased neighborhoods, and the past in North Omaha specifically.

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MY ARTICLES ABOUT HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOODS IN NORTH OMAHA
National Register of Historic Places Historic Districts in North Omaha: 24th and Lake Historic District | Benson Downtown Historic District | Country Club Historic District | Dundee/Happy Hollow Historic District | Fairacres Historic District | Fort Omaha Historic District | Minne Lusa Historic District | Nicholas Street Historic District
Historic Neighborhoods in North Omaha: Bedford Place | Belvedere Point | Bemis Park | Benson | Briggs | Bungalow City | Carter Lake, Iowa | Central Park | Clifton Hill | Collier Place | Creighton University | Crown Point | DeBolt | Druid Hill | East Omaha | Fairfax | Florence | Florence Field | Fort Omaha | Fontenelle View | Gifford Park | Gold Coast (Cathedral) | High Point | Jefferson Square | Kellom Heights | Kountze Place | Lakewood Gardens | Little Russia | Long School | Malcolm X Memorial | Miller Park | Miller Park Duplex Historic District | Monmouth Park | Montclair | Near North Side | North Downtown Omaha | Omaha View | Orchard Hill | Plum Nelly | Prairie Park | Prettiest Mile in Omaha | Prospect Place | Raven Oaks | Redman | Saratoga | Sherman | Squatter’s Row | Sulphur Springs | Ponca Hills | Wakonda | Walnut Hill | Winspear Triangle | Wyman Heights
Lost Towns in North Omaha: Benson | Briggs | Cutler’s Park | DeBolt | East Omaha | Florence | Saratoga | Sulphur Springs | Winter Quarters

MY ARTICLES RELATED TO THE HISTORY OF AMES AVENUE
NEIGHBORHOODS: Saratoga | Collier Place | Monmouth Park | Prairie Park
INTERSECTIONS: 30th and Ames | 40th and Ames | 24th Street | North Freeway | Fontenelle Boulevard
BUSINESSES: LaRue’s | Max I. Walker | North Star Theater aka Ames Theater | King Solomon’s Mines aka Shaver’s | Beacon Theater | Parkside Cafe | Ames Plaza | Battiato’s Super Market | Mergen House
PUBLIC PLACES: Ames Avenue Bridge | Saratoga School | Charles Washington Branch Library | Monmouth Park School | North High School | Fontenelle Park
OTHER: Druid Hall | St. Vincent’s Retirement Home | Ames Avenue United Methodist Church | Mergen House

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