Long before the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge defined Omaha’s skyline, the Missouri River was a temperamental, shifting beast that spanned between the dream of the Western United States and the reality of the East. For the first 20 years of Omaha history, if you wanted to get to the fledgling “Gate City” from Council Bluffs, you didn’t just walk across the water; you entrusted your life, your livestock, and your legacy to a boat. This is a history of the Missouri River ferry in Omaha.

The Lone Tree and the First Crossing

The story begins with a man named William D. Brown (1813-1868). In 1849, during the height of the California Gold Rush, Brown saw a golden opportunity—not in the mines, but in the muddy waters of the Big Muddy. Before Omaha even existed, he realized that the “Lone Tree Ferry” landing (named for a solitary giant cottonwood on the Nebraska shore) was the most reliable spot to cross the river and wanted to make money from it. In 1850, he got a charter from the Pottawatomie County Commissioners to start his ferry business.

Next, before Omaha was even an idea, Brown illegally staked out 160 acres of prime Missouri Valley flatland on the Nebraska side. This theft of land from Native Americans was called “squatting” because the land was not yet officially open for settlement became the foundation of the city. His claim was north of present-day Davenport Street and likely included much of the land that the Omaha Claim Club later fought for.

Brown’s business started humbly with a simple flatboat pulled by oars and sheer muscle fighting the current. By 1853, Brown joined forces with a new business called the Council Bluffs & Nebraska Ferry Company. This wasn’t just a transportation business, but a real estate business: They were going to establish Omaha and sell its lots. Sure, people were crossing the river to go other places, but there wasn’t enough business to get rich. To make the ferry make real money, they needed a destination for people to come to. That year, the company went to Illinois to buy a big steam-driven river ferry, and after significant informal lobbying, Congress signaled that it was going to open the Nebraska Territory for settlement. So on July 4, 1854, Brown and his fellow investors in the Council Bluffs & Nebraska Ferry Company officially founded the townsite of Omaha.

Today, Brown is recognized as the founder of Omaha.

The Steam Era and the “General Marion”

When the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened the floodgates for the settlement of the Nebraska Territory in 1854, the old muscle-powered ferries couldn’t keep up, and soon after the company upgraded to steamboats. A ferry called the General Marion became the pride of the Missouri River as it blew black coal smoke into the prairie sky. Shuttling Europeans west, the boat also carried land speculators and supplies across the water.

It was like the ferry was the umbilical cord for Baby Omaha. Everything that built the city, including the lumber for cabins and buildings, a printing press for the Omaha Arrow newspaper, and the very pioneers who would become the first mayors, came off the wooden decks of the General Marion. The importance of this boat can’t be overstated.

The ferry company didn’t just sit back and start raking in bucks. Instead, they built and owned Omaha’s first building, which was home to the St. Nicholas Hotel, and donated their own business building to serve as the first post office and the chambers for the first Nebraska Territory legislature.

Danger on the Big Muddy

Crossing the Missouri in the 1800s was almost never easy. Notorious for its “snags,” there were fallen trees hidden just beneath the surface that could rip the hull out of a steamboat in seconds.

The Missouri was also terrible for large boat traffic because it was a twisting, turning, wild river. One week the main channel might be hugging the Iowa bluffs and the next it would shift a half-mile west, leaving the ferry docks high and dry in a field of mud. Ferry captains and ferrymen had to be part-sailors, part-engineers, and part-gamblers. During the winter, the ferry stopped running entirely. If the ice was thick enough people drove their wagons right across the frozen river. If the river wasn’t frozen enough, they were stuck in Council Bluffs until the spring thaw when the ferry would run again.

The Golden Age of the Council Bluffs & Nebraska Ferry Co.

By the late 1850s and early 1860s, the ferry was a gold mine for the Council Bluffs & Nebraska Ferry Company. When the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush was biggest, thousands of “59ers” lined up on the Iowa side of the river and the ferry company cleared $50,000 in a single year, which was a HUGE amount at the time, almost $2,000,000 in 2026.

The landing at the foot of Davenport Street became the busiest spot in the Nebraska Territory. Screaming mules, shouting teamsters, and the hiss of steam drowned out everything else then.

It was here that Omaha truly earned its nickname, the “Gate City.”

In 1862, a new leader named Captain W.W. Marsh (1835-1918), bought a large stake in the company and took over the business the next year. He was the leader who steered the company through its final decade of dominance.

The End of an Era: The Iron Horse Arrives

The death knell for the Omaha Ferry came in 1872. That year, the Union Pacific Railroad completed the first bridge across the Missouri River. Suddenly, the journey that took an hour of careful and dangerous maneuvering could be done in minutes by a train.

While the ferry kept serving local wagons for a few more years, the opening of the Douglas Street Bridge (later called the Ak-Sar-Ben Bridge) in 1888 effectively made the old boats obsolete. The General Marion and its successors soon disappeared forever, scrapped for parts or claimed by the river they once conquered.

Legacy of the Ferry

Today, when we look out over the river from the Lewis and Clark Landing, it’s hard to imagine the chaos of the ferry era. But the DNA of the Omaha Ferry is everywhere. The very grid of our downtown streets was laid out to align with that original ferry landing.

The ferry wasn’t just a boat; it was the catalyst. It turned a high-plateau “Lone Tree” lookout into the metropolitan heart of the Great Plains. We owe our existence to those wood-planked decks and the brave souls who steered them through the currents.

A Self-Guided Tour of the Missouri River Ferry at Omaha

• The Nebraska Landing: Locate at the foot of Davenport Street in the area around the Lewis & Clark Landing, this was the “Lone Tree” site.
• The Iowa Landing: In the Playland Park area in Council Bluffs, this spot was near the eastern foot of the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge.
• Ferry Company Headquarters: Located in today’s Old Market area near 10th and Farnam, the original building is long gone.
• Lewis & Clark Landing: Standing near the river’s edge at the foot of Davenport Street, this exact spot was once the busiest port in the Nebraska Territory. Look for the historical markers detailing the founding of the city in 1854.
• Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge: While much higher than the old flatboats, from here to you can see the ways the river twists and bends away from downtown. Look at how the river current still makes sandbars—the same obstacles that the ferry captains had to navigate daily.
• Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park: Located in Council Bluffs, this park gives a “look over” view of Omaha. From here, you can see how the Omaha bluffs would have looked to a pioneer waiting for the General Marion to arrive.

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MY ARTICLES RELATED TO PIONEER NORTH OMAHA (1854-1867)
PEOPLE: James Comey Mitchell | James M. Parker | Florence Kilborn |
NEIGHBORHOODS: Winter Quarters | North Downtown | Saratoga | Sulphur Springs | Florence | East Omaha | Jefferson Square Neighborhood |
CHURCHES: Seventeenth Street Methodist |
BUSINESSES: Florence Mill | Florence Ferry | Saratoga Springs Hotel | Railroads |
PUBLIC PLACES: Jefferson Square Park | Mormon Tree |
CEMETERIES: Prospect Hill Cemetery | Missing Cemeteries
EVENTS: Execution of Cyrus Tator | Pinney Farm Murders |
STREETS: Military Road | Saddle Creek Road
OTHER: Mob Violence | Florence Churches | Count Creighton House