Lone Tree Ferry

[2] William Brown was headed west from Mount Pleasant, Iowa in the California Gold Rush of 1849 when he decided to stay in Council Bluffs.

[6] During the next summer the organizers of the ferry company surveyed and laid out the town site for Omaha City west of the Missouri River.

The first commercial building in Omaha belonged to the ferry company, which donated its services as the legislative chambers for the first territorial legislature and the first post office.

The company ran a twenty-year charter which featured a variety of boats until 1872, when the Union Pacific railroad opened the first bridge across the Missouri River.

The president of the incorporated company was Dr. Enos Lowe, and the other members were Sam S. Bayliss, Joseph H. D. Street, Henn and Williams, Samuel Curtis, Tanner and Downs, and others.