This is a collection of facts about North Omaha people, places, events, and more. If you share or use any of these, add a link so other people can learn about them too. Thanks! Oh, and feel free share your facts with me in the comments below.
Interesting Facts About North Omaha
Did You Know…
- …North Omaha’s roots were established in the fur trade of the early 1800s?
- …a famous German adventurer named Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied stayed in North Omaha in the 1820s?
- …there have been at least five higher education institutions in North Omaha since the 1870s?
- …Miller Park was once called the “Pride of North Omaha”?
- …segregation in Omaha hospitals caused at least two Black hospitals to be established in North Omaha?
- …in 1846, Cutler’s Park was the name of the original Mormon settlement in North Omaha?
- …white people mercilessly rioted through North Omaha’s black neighborhoods in 1910 when African American boxer Jack Johnson easily defeated a white contender?
- …that Kellom Elementary School is the alma mater of Fred Astaire, Gayle Sayers and Bob Gibson, as well as youth programs once led by Whitney Young?
- …the Notre Dame Academy and Convent in Florence was built for a group of Czech Sisters who came to Omaha in 1908 to teach Czech culture and language after local Catholic leaders requested them?
- …Florence Field was home to a US Army balloon training school associated with Fort Omaha that was located off 30th and Martin Streets in the 1910s?
- …opened in 1912, Miller Park has one of the oldest golf courses in Omaha?
- …there was a school built in North Omaha that was once called “a school for tinkerers”?
- …there wasn’t one, two or three, but four amusement parks at Carter Lake between the 1890s and 1960s?
- …a notorious madame had a six foot deep concrete slab poured over her grave in 1911 so Omaha’s wealthy wouldn’t have her dug up and moved from North Omaha’s Prospect Hill Cemetery?
- …the City of Omaha recently renamed a North Omaha street after George Wells Parker, a self-professed Black radical dedicated to Black nationalism?
- …the Urban League in Omaha was the first chapter of that organization west of the Mississippi River?
- …opened in 1860, Saratoga Elementary School is one of the oldest schools in Omaha?
- …between 1890 and 1919, at least two African American men were lynched in Omaha?
- …there were circus grounds in North Omaha for more than 50 years?
- …there was a popular race track in North Omaha where Wild Bill Hickok rehearsed his Wild West Show in 1883?
- …the new Art Moderne style Saratoga fire station was built as a Works Progress Administration proejct during the Great Depression?
- …in 1909, the Broomfield Rowhouse at 25th and Lake Streets was designed for a Good Housekeeping magazine competition?
- …the Fair Deal Cafe served as the “Black City Hall” of Omaha for almost 50 years?
- …there are almost 50 articles on Wikipedia about North Omaha’s history?
- …North 16th Street, also called Sherman Avenue, used to have country estates and plush apartment buildings lining the way north?
- …there were five sets of public housing projects built in North Omaha between 1937 and 1953?
- …African Americans, Latinos, Irish and others have been constantly discriminated against throughout the city of Omaha’s history?
- …the largest crowd in North Omaha’s history might have been the 80,000 spectators reported to attend a fireworks display in Fontenelle Park in 1925?
- …that in the 1920s, N. 24th Street was once called Omaha’s “Street of Dreams”?
- …there were four major riots in North Omaha in the 1960s?
- …the last amusement park on Carter Lake was beloved, but only lasted a decade?
- …the Omaha Star building housed the DePorres Club after they were asked to leave Creighton University because of their civil rights activism in the 1960s?
- …there were at least eight schools in North Omaha that were kept segregated through the 1950s when the city was forced to integrate its schools?
- …In the 1860s, a group of Irish settlers once lived in dugout burrows in an area called Gophertown, located roughly where Miller Park is today?
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- …that North Omaha’s Lloyd Hunter played trumpet and led a big band for 38 years, and was only recorded once by the race record label Vocalion?
- …the anti-historical building rampage that led the city to destroy hundreds of houses throughout North Omaha from the 1960s through today included a beautiful sandstone building called the Minne Lusa Pumping House in Florence in 1970?
- …in the 1890s, Florence Boulevard was called “the only suitable driveway in the city”?
- …Dr. George Miller, the namesake of the Miller Park neighborhood and Miller Park Elementary, was called a “raving maniac” by a local newspaper?
- …at one point, the Miller Park neighborhood had at least three grocery stores and 4 gas stations, a florist, dry cleaner, pharmacist, and dozens of other small businesses?
- …the first Ferris Wheel in the Omaha area was opened at Cortland Beach on Carter Lake in the 1890s?
- …by 1900, there were so many Swedes in North Omaha that people started calling their neighborhood “Little Stockholm”?
- …that in 1884, Matthew Ricketts became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Nebraska College of Medicine? In 1892 he became the first African-American to be elected to the Nebraska Legislature.
- …that the Nebraska School for the Deaf along Fontenelle Blvd. was nationally known within the Deaf community for its fight against an anti-American Sign Language state bill endorsed by Alexander Graham Bell?
- …that the only integrated, all-female big band in the United States, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, was led by Anna Mae Winburn out of North Omaha in the 1940s?
- …by the 1950s, race restrictive housing covenants and redlining by white people kept the Logan Fontenelle Housing Project racially segregated on purpose?
- …a 1960s youth-led activism campaign in Omaha called BANTU was under observation by the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations?
- …Reverend John Albert Williams led a church, started a newspaper, established the Omaha NAACP and much more over his 50+ year career?
- …longtime North Omaha state senator Ernie Chamber was virtually the star of the Oscar-nominated 1966 documentary, A Time for Burning?
- …a 1994 NTV special called A Street of Dreams focused on the history of the Near North Side and N. 24th Street?
- …North Omaha’s architect, Cap Wigington, entered and won national competitions frequently when he didn’t have a work to design a building?
- …the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Nebraska have been own of three fraternal organizations to own Druid Hall, a quintessential North Omaha social hall built in 1915?
- …that Fort Omaha was abandoned by the U.S. Army no fewer than six times until Metro Community College took it over in the 1970s?
- …the lynching of Will Brown was the second recorded event of its kind in Omaha history?
- …North Omaha had at least three streetcar barns throughout its history?
- …Omaha has a history of African American politics extending to the founding of the city?
- …there are more than 20 styles represented in North Omaha’s architecture?
- …East Omaha and Miller Park were among the 25+ sites considered for the Trans-Mississippi Exposition of 1898?
- …the oldest house in North Omaha was built in 1846, before the City of Omaha existed?
- …UNO, the University of Nebraska – Omaha, was originally founded and built in North Omaha?
- …redlining in Omaha was a formal and informal practice that prevented African Americans from buying or renting outside an area determined by the federal government, insurance agents, real estate agents and banks?
- …the Logan Fontenelle Housing Project was opened in 1938 and demolished in 1995?
- …the murder of an unarmed 14-year-old girl by an Omaha police officer touched off days of rioting and nearly destroyed North Omaha’s commercial infrastructure?
- …one of the nation’s leading religiously-affiliated hospitals was in North Omaha for 75 years?
- …the Viking Ship had two other names before it became an homage to North High?
- …the original AKSARBEN public facility was located in North Omaha?
- …over the last century, North Omaha has been home to at least 20 movie theaters?
- …Swedes were responsible for founding at least three hospitals in North Omaha’s history?
- …African Americans started struggling for Civil Rights and creating a movement in Omaha in the 1870s?
- …North Omaha was home to not just one, but two expositions?
- …the Jewish community in North Omaha had several synagogues, an old folks home, a hospital, and dozens of businesses throughout the area?
- …businesses, social halls, churches, and dozens of other institutions were started in the Near North Side Neighborhood and served African Americans, Jews, and before them, immigrants from across Europe, including Scandinavians, Italians, and others.
- …the Redick Mansion was moved piece-by-piece to Minnesota to become a resort?
- …in 1905, Swedish doctors opened a new hospital along N. 24th in the 1876 mansion of John McCreary?
- …J. J. Brown’s 1870 mansion on N. 16th was repurposed as a hospital after the turn of the century?
- …pioneer Omaha lawyer A. J. Poppleton’s estate was located on N. 16th?
- …Binney Street has dozens of beautiful old houses between N. 14th and the North Freeway?
- …the Omaha Colored Commercial Club sought to employ Blacks, promote Black businesses and act as an ex-officio hiring agency for Omaha’s Black community?
- …examples of racism happen in the Omaha area are documented back to 1804?
- …Nebraska’s first legal execution happened in the North Omaha area?
- …there are at least a half dozen real reasons to be concerned about Hummel Park that don’t include Satan worshipping, ghosts, or albinos?
- …at the turn of the 20th century, a ghost haunted a restaurant in the Carter Lake resort area?
- …in 1874, a ghost was widely reported in one of Omaha’s pioneer cemeteries?
- …at least two neighborhoods in North Omaha were built on top of old cemeteries?
- …there were tunnels under the Immanuel Deaconess Institute for transporting patients, utilities, and other things?
- …more than a dozen deaths happened at Fort Omaha over its 125 years of history as a military institution?
- …the caretaker of Omaha’s Prospect Hill Cemetery and his gravedigger were taken to court for illegally digging up the dead?
- …beer brewing in the North Omaha area began when the city of Omaha was founded?
- …Omaha schools were segregated starting in the 1860s and continuing today?
- …there were at least a half dozen Black hotels in Omaha?
- …North Omaha’s Lake Street was named for an early judge in the city?
- …Father Flanagan asked North Omaha’s Dan Desdunes to lead a band at the school that traveled around the country raising money for the future Boy’s Town?
- …North Omaha is home to more than 117 buildings and houses at least 117 years old?
- …the City of Omaha intentionally built the Kellom Pool to be integrated in order to keep the rest of the city’s swimming pools segregated?
- …the Nebraska School for the Deaf became the first such institution to win a state basketball championship against regular public school teams?
- …a major fecal contamination flowed through the Walnut Hill Reservoir, forcing the City of Omaha to update their water cleaning process?
- …there have been more than a dozen Black newspapers in Omaha history?
- …the Italian colony in North Omaha lasted for 50 years and included a church, a hall, parades and festivals?
- …a massive car manufacturing factory was almost built in North Omaha more than a century ago?
- …boys and girls across Nebraska raised more than $10,000 to have their own building at the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition?
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One response to “North Omaha History Facts”
Did you know that Clarence 'Cap' Wigington was Omaha's First African-American Architect? Trained by Omaha-based Architect Thomas Kimball (St. Cecilia's Cathedral) he apprenticed for Kimball for 6 years then started his own firm. The Broomfield & Crutchfield Row House(s) located on N. 25th & Lake Streets was a 'Good Housekeeping' Magazine 1st place contest winner Wigington designed in 1909.