The history of Omaha, Nebraska, began before the settlement of the city, with speculators from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa, staking land across the Missouri River illegally as early as the 1840s. When it was legal to claim land in Indian Country, William D. Brown was operating the Lone Tree Ferry to bring settlers from Council Bluffs to Omaha. A treaty with the Omaha Tribe allowed the creation of the Nebraska Territory, and Omaha City was founded on July 4, 1854. With early settlement came claim jumpers and squatters, and the formation of a vigilante law group called the Omaha Claim Club, which was one of many claim clubs across the Midwest. During this period many of the city's founding fathers received lots in Scriptown, which was made possible by the actions of the Omaha Claim Club. The club's violent actions were challenged successfully in a case ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, Baker v. Morton, which led to the end of the organization.
Surrounded by small towns and cities that competed for business from the hinterland's farmers, the city suffered a major setback in the Panic of 1857. Despite this, Omaha quickly emerged as the largest city in Nebraska. After losing the Nebraska State Capitol to Lincoln in 1867, many business leaders rallied and created the Jobbers Canyon in downtown Omaha to outfit farmers in Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming and further west. Their entrepreneurial success allowed them to build mansions in Kountze Place and the Old Gold Coast neighborhoods.
With the development of the Omaha Stockyards and neighboring packinghouses in the 1870s, several workers' housing areas, including Sheelytown, developed in South Omaha. Its growth happened so quickly that the town was nicknamed the "Magic City". The latter part of the 19th century also saw the formation of several fraternal organizations, including the formation of Knights of Aksarben. City leaders rallied for the creation of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in 1898. During the Expo, famous madames Anna Wilson and Ada Everleigh were making a good living from the crowds. At the same time, Boss Tom Dennison compounded the city's vices in the notorious Sporting District, with the full support of eight-term mayor "Cowboy" James Dahlman. Many of these early pioneers are buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery. City leaders created Omaha University in 1908.
With reform administrations in the 1930s and 1940s, the city became a meatpacking powerhouse. Several regional beer breweries developed, including Metz, Storz and Krug companies. The city's southern suburb became home to the Strategic Air Command in the late 1940s; in 1950 the Rosenblatt Stadium in South Omaha became home to the College World Series. Labor unrest in the 1930s resulted in organizing of the meatpacking plants by the CIO-FCW, which built an interracial partnership and achieved real gains for the workers for some decades.
After World War II, blacks in Omaha as in other parts of the nation began to press harder for civil rights. Veterans believed they deserved full rights after fighting for the nation. Some organizations had already been formed, but they became more active, leading into the city's Civil Rights Movement.
Suburbanization and highway expansion led to white flight to newer housing and development of middle and upper-class areas in West Omaha from the 1950s through the 1970s. The historically ethnically diverse areas of North and South Omaha became more concentrated by economics, race, and class. These workers suffered dramatic job losses during the industrial restructuring that increased rapidly in the 1960s, and poverty became more widespread.
White contact with Native Americans
Omaha's location near the confluence of the Missouri River and Platte River has long made the location a key point of transfer for both people and goods. Prior to European-American establishment of the city, numerous Indian tribes had inhabited the area, including the Pawnee, Otoe, Sioux, the Missouri and Ioway. They had developed a semi-nomadic lifestyle necessary for survival on the Great Plains. Since the 17th century, the Pawnee, Otoe, Sioux, and Ioway all variously occupied the land that became Omaha. The Pawnee and Otoe tribes had inhabited the region for hundreds of years by the time the Dhegihan Omaha tribe had arrived from the lower Ohio valley in the early 18th century. Translated, the word "Omaha" () means "Dwellers on the Bluff".Matthews, J.J. (1961) The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters. University of Oklahoma Press. Pages 110, 128, 140, 282 Usually, the word is translated "against the current," but in those cases no source is quoted.
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries when they were the most powerful Indians along the stretch of the Missouri River north of the Platte, the Omaha nation moved on the western edge of present-day Bellevue, Nebraska. After a smallpox outbreak, cultural degradation, the elimination of the buffalo, and continued property loss, the Omaha sold the last of their claims in 1856 and relocated to their present reservation in Thurston County, in northeastern Nebraska.
European settlement
On July 21, 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed by the riverbanks that would later become the city of Omaha. On July 22 the Corps of Discovery established a camp near present-day Bellevue for five nights, naming it "Camp White Catfish." On the 27th, William Clark and Reuben Fields investigated mysterious earthen mounds close to where 8th and Douglas Streets and the Heartland of America Park are today in Downtown Omaha. That night they camped in an area that is Eppley Airfield today.(2007) "History at a glance" , Douglas County Historical Society. Retrieved 2/2/08. The expedition stopped at a point about 20 miles (30 km) north of present-day Omaha, at which point they first met with the Otoe. They had a council meeting with members of the tribal leadership on the west side of the Missouri River. The first recorded instance of a black person in the Omaha area was "York", an enslaved African American who accompanied William Clark on the Expedition.
The Astor Expedition came through in 1811. Stephen Long passed through the Omaha area in 1819 on his Platte River Expedition. A decade later, adventurers and fur traders were frequenting the region, trading at Fort Lisa, built by Manuel Lisa in 1806; Fort Atkinson, built in 1819 as a military outpost adjacent to the location of the earlier council meeting; and Cabanne's Trading Post, built by the American Fur Company in 1822.
In 1825 a fur trader named J.B. Royce built a stockade and trading post on a plateau near the present-day block formed by Dodge Street and Capitol Avenue, Ninth and Tenth Streets. That establishment was abandoned and decayed within the next 20 years.Gilman, D.C., Peck, H.T. and Colby, F.M. () The New International Encyclopædia. p 348.
In the 1840s the Mormons built a town called Cutler's Park in the area before resuming their westward migration on the Mormon Trail.Federal Writers' Project Staff (1939) Nebraska: A guide to the Cornhusker state. Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of Nebraska. p. 222
In 1854 Logan Fontenelle and the Omaha Tribe sold the majority of their tribal land, four million acres (16,000 km), to the United States for less than 22 cents an acre. This allowed the settlement of Nebraska Territory and the founding of Omaha City.(n.d.) Multiethnic Guide. Greater Omaha Economic Partnership. That year the formation of the Territory in the Kansas–Nebraska Act was based on the condition that it remain slave-free.
Pioneer Omaha: 1853 to 1867
In 1853 William D. Brown operated the Lone Tree Ferry to shuttle California Gold Rush prospectors and Oregon Trail settlers across the river between Kanesville, Iowa and the Nebraska Territory. The Lone Tree Ferry eventually became the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company. "Omaha City" was organized by the owners of the Council Bluffs & Nebraska Ferry Company to lure the proposed transcontinental railroad to Council Bluffs. Alfred D. Jones, Omaha City's first postmaster, platted the town site early in 1854, months after the Kansas–Nebraska Act created the Nebraska Territory.Reeves, R. (n.d.) Douglas County History University of Nebraska. The first black person in Omaha arrived in 1854.
While the city was young, there were no formal police or sheriff, or at least one with any significant authority. Compensating for the absence of the law, many early Omaha pioneers formed a claim club to create and enforce a legal system to their advantage. The Omaha Claim Club took authority over many areas of the new city, generally focused on land-related issues. In the 1860s, ten years after the city's formation, early citizens also created the Old Settlers' Association to record the early history of the settlement.
Aside from Omaha, other early settlements and towns in the area include Fontenelle's Post founded in 1806; Fort Lisa founded 1806; Culter's Park, founded 1846; Bellevue, settled in 1804 and founded 1853; East Omaha, founded in the 1850s; and Saratoga, founded 1857. The town of Florence was platted by James C. Mitchell in 1854 and founded in 1855.
The first minister in Omaha was Moses F. Shinn, a Methodist Episcopal Church leader from Council Bluffs.Douglas County. Andreas' history of Nebraska. Retrieved 8/11/07. Most of Omaha's early pioneers, including Nebraska Territory politicians, soldiers from Fort Omaha and the early African-American community, were buried at Prospect Hill Cemetery in North Omaha. Starting in 1887 Douglas County officials started recording the burials of poor people and people without a known identity in Potter's Field. Located in far North Omaha, today Potter's Field is maintained by Forest Lawn Cemetery, which is located nearby. There is speculation that Mormon pioneers were buried there in the 1850s, as well.
The Nebraska State Capitol was moved from Omaha in 1867.
Nebraska Territory Capitol
Late in 1854 Omaha was chosen as the territorial capital for Nebraska. In 1855 during a land grab a group of businessmen formed the Omaha Land Company and platted Scriptown to reward Nebraska Territory legislators for their votes for statehood. After Baker v. Morton in 1857, this type of land baron-like behavior was made illegal; by that time lots had been developed and Scriptown quickly became part of several neighborhoods, including Gifford Park, Prospect Hill and the Near North Side.
The small city suffered greatly in the economic Panic of 1857; however, the presence of the capital is credited for keeping the town alive. For several years Omaha enjoyed its status as the capital of the Nebraska Territory, although not without contention. In January 1858 a group of representatives illegally moved the Nebraska Territorial Legislature to Florence following a violent outburst at the State Capitol in Omaha. After repeatedly being dogged out of voting on the removal of the Capitol from Omaha, a skirmish pitted representatives from Nebraska City, Florence, and other communities to convene outside of Omaha. Despite having a majority of members present for the vote to remove the Capitol and all agreeing, the "Florence Legislature" did not succeed in swaying the Nebraska Territory governor, and the Capitol remained in Omaha until 1867 when Nebraska gained statehood.Bristow, D. (1997) A Dirty, Wicked Town: Tale of 19th Century Omaha. Caxton Press. When Omaha eventually lost the capital to Lincoln in 1867, the city was by then strong enough to maintain economic growth for a period of time.
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